Aerodynamic pressures on a 5:1 rectangular cylinder in sinusoidal streamwise oscillatory flows with non-zero mean velocities

Abstract

In this paper, the aerodynamic pressures on a 5:1 rectangular cylinder in sinusoidal streamwise oscillatory flows (SSOFs) with non-zero mean velocities are studied through wind tunnel experiments. First, the mean and fluctuating pressure coefficients are determined based on the measurements in SSOFs with different reduced frequencies and gust amplitudes. The results are compared with those of smooth flow and grid-generated turbulent flow. Next, the power spectral densities of surface pressures are presented to study their energy distributions in the frequency domain. Then, the spanwise correlations of surface pressures in SSOFs are compared with those of smooth flow to explore their three-dimensional characteristics. The testing results show that the reduced frequency, varying from 0.012 to 0.032 has little effect on the streamwise pressure distributions of the 5:1 rectangular cylinder, and the influences of the gust amplitude of SSOFs are significant. The maximum RMS pressure coefficient increases and the separation bubble length reduces to a large degree as the gust amplitude increases. The spectral analysis demonstrates that the energy of fluctuating pressures in SSOFs is primarily from oscillatory streamwise gusts, while it is mainly provided by vortex shedding in smooth flow. The SSOF can accelerate the vortex shedding process and the Strouhal number increases as the increased gust amplitude. The spanwise correlations of pressures are strong in the majority region of the side surface of the 5:1 rectangular cylinder in SSOFs.