Characteristics of vortex shedding in the wake of a sphere with a uniaxial through-hole

Abstract

Wake flows have significant effects on vehicles, buildings, and other objects encountered in daily life. Thus, wake control techniques are of practical importance and have been extensively investigated. One passive wake-control technique is to create a vent on a bluff body, which has been determined to be effective for wake control on a circular cylinder but has not been sufficiently studied for wake control on a sphere. Therefore, this study examined the effect of the vent angle on the characteristics of the wake of a sphere. A sphere with a uniaxial through-hole (vent) was placed in a uniform flow, and the vent angle was varied in the streamwise direction. The Strouhal number in the high-frequency and low-frequency modes was examined. The flow field in the sphere wake varied with respect to the vent angle. Three frequency modes (high, low, and very low), the occurrence of a switching phenomenon, wherein the velocity fluctuated between positive and negative values, and high-frequency energy injection by the vent were observed. In addition, a high dominant frequency was observed only in the positive velocity fluctuation region.