A computational study of drag reduction and vortex shedding suppression of flow past a square cylinder in presence of small control cylinders

Abstract

This article presents a two-dimensional numerical study of the unsteady laminar flow from a square cylinder in presence of multiple small control cylinders. The cylinders are placed in an unconfined medium at low Reynolds numbers (Re = 100 and 160). Different flow phenomena are captured for the gap spacings (g = s/D, where s is the surface-to-surface distance between the main cylinder and small control cylinders and D is the size of the main cylinder) between 0.25 – 3 and angle of attack (θ) ranging from 300 to 1800. Numerical calculations are performed by using a lattice Boltzmann method. In this paper, the important flow physics of different observed flow patterns in terms of instantaneous vorticity contours visualization, time-trace analysis of drag and lift coefficients and power spectra analysis of lift coefficient are presented and discussed. Drag reduction and suppression of vortex shedding is also discussed in detail and compared with the available experimental and numerical results qualitatively as well as quantitatively. In addition, the mean drag coefficient, Strouhal number, root-mean-square values of the drag and lift coefficients are determined and compared with a single square cylinder without small control cylinders. We found that the drag is reduced 99.8% and 97.6% for (θ, g) = (300, 3) at Re = 100 and 160, respectively.