Computational Analysis of the Rotating Cylinder Embedment onto Flat Plate

The Magnus effect and its evolution have greatly affected the aerospace industry over the past century to date. Nevertheless, cylinder embedment onto a flat plate offers a new discovery that is yet to be investigated, specifically whether the concept could enhance the aerodynamic properties of the flat plate following the Magnus effect momentum injection. Over the past decade, the use of a rotating cylinder on an aerofoil has existed from past researches studies where the embedment has significantly increased in its aerodynamic performance better than the one without Magnus application. However, it would be hard to achieve experimental-wise as an accurate measurement and fabrication would be needed to have the same resulting effects. Here, most of the researchers would not focus deeply on the placement of the cylinder as this may increase their fabrication and testing complications. Therefore, the current study delineates the use of flat plate as the foundation design to encounter the arise matter by reducing its complication yet easy to manufacture experimentally. In this work, the model output was evaluated by using ANSYS WORKBENCH 2019 software to simulate two-dimensional flow analysis for the rotational velocities of 500 RPM and 1000 RPM, respectively. This was done for different Reynolds numbers ranging from 4.56E+05 to 2.74E+06 which implicitly implied with free stream velocities varying from 5 m/s to 30 m/s for different angles of attack between 0 to 20 degrees. Prior to developing the best model embedment, the mesh independency test was validated with an error of less than 1%. The study resulted in a remarkable trend that was noticeably up to 32% (500 RPM) and 76% (1000 RPM) better in compared to the one without momentum injection. Similarly, the high recovery led to a tremendously lower of 51% (500 RPM) and 99% (1000 RPM), respectively. In sum, these findings generated a stall angle delay of up to 26% (500 RPM) and 78% (1000 RPM) accordingly.

New single vortex generation method for flame/vortex interaction using flow behind a rotating cylinder

This paper investigates a new experimental method to generate a single two-dimensional translated vortex for flame/vortex interaction studies. A rotating cylinder is immersed in a uniform flow and, its rotating speed is impulsively reduced. This sudden action triggers the generation of a single vortex when both the initial and the final rotation speeds are in the range of a steady-state regime. Flow visualization allows confirming the applicability of this method, while a complementary two-dimensional numerical simulation is conducted to understand the vortex formation process. A vorticity layer is detached from the cylinder, initiating a feeding process and gradual growth of a single leading vortex. The feeding process is saturated at a specific distance from the cylinder and, vortex separation from the vorticity layer is observed. At the final stage of the formation process, the generated vortex is advected away and, a steady-state regime is again established behind the cylinder. The vortex characteristics appear to be related to the normalized reduction in the rotation rate ∆α, defined as the initial and final rotation rates difference normalized by the initial rotation rate. Several combinations of initial and final rotation rates corresponding to different normalized reductions are investigated experimentally and numerically. The results allow understanding the effect of this parameter; a higher normalized reduction generates a stronger, more rapidly growing vortex. However, its trajectory is related to the wake deviation corresponding to the final rotation rate.

Coating flow on a rotating cylinder in the presence of an irrotational airflow with circulation

A detailed analysis of steady coating flow of a thin film of a viscous fluid on the outside of a uniformly rotating horizontal circular cylinder in the absence of surface-tension effects but in the presence of a non-uniform pressure distribution due to an irrotational airflow with circulation shows that the presence of the airflow can result in qualitatively different behaviour of the fluid film from that in classical coating flow. Full-film solutions corresponding to a continuous film of fluid covering the entire cylinder are possible only when the flux and mass of fluid do not exceed critical values, which are determined in terms of the non-dimensional parameters $F$ and $K$ representing the speed of the far-field airflow and the circulation of the airflow, respectively. The qualitative changes in the behaviour of the film thickness as $F$ and $K$ are varied are described. In particular, the film thickness can have as many as four stationary points and, in general, has neither top-to-bottom nor right-to-left symmetry. In addition, when the circulation of the airflow is in the same direction as the rotation of the cylinder the maximum mass of fluid that can be supported on the cylinder is always less than that in classical coating flow, whereas when the circulation is in the opposite direction the maximum mass of fluid can be greater than that in classical coating flow.