Vortex shedding from tapered plates

Abstract.

An experimental study of vortex shedding behind flat plates placed normal to an airstream is presented for Reynolds numbers of O(10⁴). Apart from a parallel-sided plate used as the reference case, all the plates were tapered in the spanwise direction so that the cross-stream width of the plate varied linearly with spanwise distance along it. The data allow significant extension of the conclusions of previously published work and demonstrate that "cellular" shedding occurs in many cases. Within each (spanwise) cell, the shedding frequency is constant despite the changing plate width, and it is shown that the location and extent of the cells are functions of the degree of taper, the spanwise aspect ratio and the end conditions. Unlike the corresponding case of tapered cylinders (i.e. cones), the Reynolds number is not normally a dominant parameter.