Hydrodynamics of flow over a transversely oscillating circular cylinder beneath a free surface

Abstract

In this paper, hydrodynamic force coefficients and wake vortex structures of uniform flow over a transversely oscillating circular cylinder beneath a free surface were numerically investigated by an adaptive Cartesian cut-cell/level-set method. At a fixed Reynolds number, 100, a series of simulations covering three Froude numbers, two submergence depths, and three oscillation amplitudes were performed over a wide range of oscillation frequency. Results show that, for a deeply submerged cylinder with sufficiently large oscillation amplitudes, both the lift amplitude jump and the lift phase sharp drop exist, not accompanied by significant changes of vortex shedding timing. The near-cylinder vortex structure changes when the lift amplitude jump occurs. For a cylinder oscillating beneath a free surface, larger oscillation amplitude or submergence depth causes higher time-averaged drag for frequency ratio (=oscillation frequency/natural vortex shedding frequency) greater than 1.25. All near-free-surface cases exhibit negative time-averaged lift the magnitude of which increases with decreasing submergence depth. In contrast to a deeply submerged cylinder, occurrences of beating in the temporal variation of lift are fewer for a cylinder oscillating beneath a free surface, especially for small submergence depth. For the highest Froude number investigated, the lift frequency is locked to the cylinder oscillation frequency for frequency ratios higher than one. The vortex shedding mode tends to be double-row for deep and single-row for shallow submergence. Proximity to the free surface would change or destroy the near-cylinder vortex structure characteristic of deep-submergence cases. The lift amplitude jump is smoother for smaller submergence depth. Similar to deep-submergence cases, the vortex shedding frequency is not necessarily the same as the primary-mode frequency of the lift coefficient. The frequency of the induced free surface wave is exactly the cylinder oscillation frequency. The trends of wave length variation with the Froude number and frequency ratio agree with those predicted by the linear theory of small-amplitude free surface waves.