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Effects of aspect ratio on the drag of a wall-mounted finite-length cylinder in subcritical and critical regimes

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Abstract

The effect of cylinder aspect ratio (≡H/d, where H is the cylinder height or length, and d is the cylinder diameter) on the drag of a wall-mounted finite-length circular cylinder in both subcritical and critical regimes is experimentally investigated. Two cases are considered: a smooth cylinder submerged in a turbulent boundary layer and a roughened cylinder immersed in a laminar uniform flow. In the former case, the Reynolds number Re d (≡U ∞ d/ν, with U ∞ being the free-stream velocity and ν the fluid viscosity) was varied from 2.61 × 104 to 2.87 × 105, and two values of H/d (2.65 and 5) were examined; in the latter case, Re d  = 1.24 × 104–1.73 × 105 and H/d = 3, 5 and 7. In the subcritical regime, both the drag coefficient C D and the Strouhal number St are smaller than their counterparts for a two-dimensional cylinder and reduce monotonously with decreasing H/d. The presence of a turbulent boundary layer causes an early transition from the subcritical to critical regime and considerably enlarges the Re d range of the critical regime. No laminar separation bubble occurs on the finite-length cylinder immersed in the turbulent boundary layer, and consequently, the discontinuity is not observed in the C D–Re d and St–Re d curves. In the roughened cylinder case, the Re d range of the critical regime grows gradually with decreasing H/d, while the C D crisis becomes less obvious. In both cases, H/d has a negligible effect on the critical value of Re d at which transition occurs from the subcritical to critical regime.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge support given to them from the National Natural Science Foundation of China through grants 11172085 and 51108468. Authors are grateful for Prof. Gu Z. F.’s support and help in obtaining experimental data in the presence of a boundary layer in the State Key Laboratory for Turbulence and Complex Systems, Peking University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, China

    H. F. Wang

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

    Y. Zhou

  3. State Key Laboratory for Turbulence and Complex Systems, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, China

    J. Mi

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  1. H. F. Wang
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  2. Y. Zhou
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  3. J. Mi
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Correspondence to H. F. Wang.

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Wang, H.F., Zhou, Y. & Mi, J. Effects of aspect ratio on the drag of a wall-mounted finite-length cylinder in subcritical and critical regimes. Exp Fluids 53, 423–436 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00348-012-1299-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00348-012-1299-z

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