Flow around porous square cylinders with a periodic and scalable structure

Abstract

This study experimentally explores the effect of permeability as an isolated control parameter on the downstream wake structure and the aerodynamic properties of the porous square cylinder. An addictive manufacturing technique was utilized to fabricate the porous cylinder, comprised of a simple cubic lattice structure. This unique manufacturing technique, coupled with a periodic and scalable lattice structure, allows us to decouple the permeability from the porosity. Based on permeability measurements in this study, Darcy number (Da) of the porous cylinder varies in a range of 2.44×10−5−4.07×10−4, while its porosity (Φ) is fixed at 0.7. Interesting features in the downstream wake are observed due to the mutual interaction between longitudinal and lateral bleeding flows. This mutual interplay prevents wake entrainment, relocating a recirculation bubble downstream and making its size smaller with increasing Da. When Da>2.0×10−4, in particular, a steady wake is observed in the near-wake despite the low degree of porosity. Finally, we proposed a new approach to defining the length scale of the flow adjustment that is suitable for the porous square cylinder and comparable to the porous cylinder with a circular cross-section.