Effect of arrangement of inline splitter plate on flow past square cylinder

Abstract

Two-dimensional numerical study has been carried out to investigate the effect of the presence of a single splitter plate in upstream location, and presence of two splitter plates, in upstream as well as downstream locations, for low Reynolds number incompressible flow past a square cylinder. Using finite difference discretisation and MAC algorithm, an indigenously developed computational code has been used for solution of the governing flow equations. The length of the plate and its position do play good role in controlling the flow past the cylinder. The difficulty lies in identifying an optimum configuration of these parameters. The length of the attached splitter plate as well as separation of the detached splitter plate of fixed length are varied for both the upstream and downstream configurations up to maximum Reynolds number of 200. To begin with, the effect of upstream splitter plate alone in attached as well as detached configuration is studied with an aim to identify the optimum configuration associated with reduced drag as well as delayed onset of vortex shedding. Then, for the optimum configuration of the upstream plate, the effect of downstream plate on flow characteristics and critical Reynolds number for onset of vortex shedding has been studied.