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Impact of body inclination on the flow past a rotating cylinder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 August 2021

Rémi Bourguet*
Affiliation:
Institut de Mécanique des Fluides de Toulouse, Université de Toulouse and CNRS, Toulouse 31400, France
*
†Email address for correspondence: remi.bourguet@imft.fr

Abstract

The rotation applied to a circular cylinder, rigidly mounted in a current perpendicular to its axis, can result in the suppression of vortex shedding and of the associated force fluctuations. It also causes the emergence of a myriad of two- and three-dimensional flow regimes. The present paper explores numerically the impact of a deviation from the normal incidence configuration, by considering a rotating cylinder inclined in the current. The Reynolds number based on the body diameter and the magnitude of the current velocity component normal to its axis ($U_\perp$) is set to $100$. The range of values of the rotation rate (ratio between body surface velocity and $U_\perp$, $\alpha \in [0,5.5]$) encompasses the two unsteady flow regions and three-dimensional transition identified at normal incidence. The inclination angle ($\theta$) refers to the angle between the current direction and the plane perpendicular to the cylinder axis. A low inclination angle ($\theta \in \{15^\circ ,30^\circ \}$), i.e. slight deviation from normal incidence ($\theta =0^\circ$), has a limited influence on the global evolution of the flow with $\alpha$, which can be predicted via the independence principle (IP), based on $U_\perp$ only. This highlights the robustness of prior observations made for $\theta =0^\circ$. Some effects of the axial flow are, however, uncovered in the high-$\alpha$ range; in particular, the single-sided vortex shedding is replaced by an irregular streamwise-oriented structure. In contrast, a large inclination angle ($\theta =75^\circ$) leads to a major reorganization of flow evolution scenario over the entire $\alpha$ range, with the disappearance of all steady regimes, the occurrence of structures reflecting the pronounced asymmetry of the configuration (oblique shedding, strongly slanted vorticity tongues) and a dramatic departure of fluid forces from the IP prediction.

Information

Type
JFM Papers
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press
Figure 0

Figure 1.Flow patterns downstream of a cylinder inclined in the current at $Re=100$, in the absence of rotation: instantaneous iso-surfaces of spanwise vorticity ($\omega _z=\pm 0.35$) for (a) $\theta =30^\circ$ and (b) $\theta =75^\circ$. Arrows denote the oncoming flow. The regime names indicated in the panels will be introduced in §§ 3 and 4. Part of the computational domain is shown.

Figure 1

Figure 2.Flow patterns downstream of the rotating cylinder at normal incidence (a,c,e,g) and low inclination angles (b,d,h,j): instantaneous iso-surfaces of spanwise vorticity ($\omega _z= \pm 0.05$) for (a) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(0^\circ ,3)$, (b) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(30^\circ ,3)$, (c) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(0^\circ ,4)$, (d) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(30^\circ ,4.375)$, (e) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(0^\circ ,4.5)$, (f) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(15^\circ ,4.5)$, (g) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(0^\circ ,5)$ and (h) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(15^\circ ,5)$. Arrows denote the oncoming flow. Flow regime is specified in each panel. Part of the computational domain is shown.

Figure 2

Figure 3.Selected time series of the CF force coefficient along the span for (a) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(0^\circ ,4)$, (b) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(30^\circ ,4.375)$, (c) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(0^\circ ,4.5)$, (d) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(15^\circ ,4.5)$, (e) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(0^\circ ,5)$ and (f) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(15^\circ ,5)$. Flow regime is specified in each panel.

Figure 3

Figure 4.Flow regimes as functions of the rotation rate for (a) $\theta =0^\circ$, (b) $\theta =15^\circ$ and (c) $\theta =30^\circ$. The different regimes are delimited by black dashed lines. Regime names (U1, U2, U3, S1 and S2 for $\theta =0^\circ$; A, B, C, D, E and F for $\theta \in \{15^\circ ,30^\circ \}$) are specified in red. Oblique blue stripes denote the regions where flow structure exhibits spanwise modulations. The unsteady/steady flow regimes are indicated in yellow/white. The dominant frequencies (grey circles) or ranges of dominant frequencies (intervals delimited by grey triangles) of the CF force fluctuation (based on span-averaged spectra of $\tilde {C}_y$), are plotted in each unsteady flow region; in (b,c), for comparison, black crosses represent the dominant frequencies for $\theta =0^\circ$.

Figure 4

Figure 5.Span-averaged frequency spectrum of the CF force coefficient fluctuation for (a) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(30^\circ ,1)$, (b) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(30^\circ ,4.375)$, (c) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(15^\circ ,4.5)$ and (d) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(15^\circ ,5)$. The spectral amplitudes are normalized by their maximum value. Flow regime is specified in each panel. In (a,d), a blue dashed line denotes the frequency identified at normal incidence.

Figure 5

Figure 6.Force statistics as functions of the rotation rate, for $\theta \in \{0^\circ ,15^\circ ,30^\circ ,75^\circ \}$: span-averaged values of the (a,b) time-averaged force coefficients and (c,d) root-mean-square values of the force coefficient fluctuations in the (a,c) IL and (b,d) CF directions. Yellow/white areas indicate the unsteady/steady flow regions for $\theta =15^\circ$, in order to locate the typical $\alpha$ ranges of flow unsteadiness for low $\theta$; horizontal grey stripes denote the E regime region. In (a), a plain black line indicates $\langle \bar {C}_x\rangle =0$. In (b), a black dotted line represents the potential flow prediction of the CF force coefficient.

Figure 6

Figure 7.Same as figure 2 at large inclination angle ($\theta =75^\circ$; $\omega _z=\pm 0.35$) for (a) $\alpha =1.7$, (b) $\alpha =2$, (c) $\alpha =2.5$ and (d) $\alpha =4$.

Figure 7

Figure 8.Same as figure 3 for $\theta =75^\circ$: (a) $\alpha =1.5$, (b) $\alpha =1.7$, (c) $\alpha =2$ and (d) $\alpha =4$.

Figure 8

Figure 9.Same as figure 4 for $\theta =75^\circ$. Regime names (I, II and III) are specified in red.

Figure 9

Figure 10.Same as figure 5 for $\theta =75^\circ$: (a) $\alpha =1.7$ and (b) $\alpha =4$. In (a), a blue dashed line denotes the oblique vortex shedding frequency for $(\theta ,\alpha )=(75^\circ ,1.5)$ (I regime).

Figure 10

Figure 11.Flow regimes vs inclination angle: (a) ratio between the vortex shedding frequencies in the inclined body case and at normal incidence as a function of the inclination angle, for $\alpha \in \{0,1\}$ (the ratio of $1$ is denoted by a plain black line, the trend reported by Van Atta (1968) for $\alpha =0$ is represented by a blue dashed line and the regions of parallel/oblique vortex shedding are indicated in white/grey); (b) selected time series of the CF force coefficient at midspan ($z=12$) for $(\theta ,\alpha )=(70^\circ ,3)$ and $(\theta ,\alpha )=(75^\circ ,3)$; (c,d) same as figure 3 for (c) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(5^\circ ,4)$ and (d) $(\theta ,\alpha )=(10^\circ ,5)$.