Numerical study of cross-flow around a circular cylinder with differently shaped span-wise surface grooves at low Reynolds number

Abstract

Laminar cross-flow over a circular cylinder with smooth as well as longitudinally grooved surfaces was investigated numerically for low freestream Reynolds number ranging from 50 to 300. Most of the currently published works on similar flow configurations considered high Reynolds number in the turbulent regime. The computations were performed by the ANSYS Fluent code. The numerical results were validated against the experimental results. The triangular V-shaped, the U-shaped, and Rectangular shaped grooves, with unit aspect ratio; along with the smooth cylinder, are considered. The predicted flow-field for the grooved cylinder cases are analyzed and compared with that for the smooth cylinder. The aerodynamic loads, time-averaged velocities, rms velocity, vorticity, and pressure coefficient plots around the smooth and grooved cylinders were compared to explore the effect of the shape of the grooves on flow dynamics over the cylinder. The flow physics around the cylinder is significantly affected by the shape and size of the grooves, and their circumferential distribution. It is found that the U-grooves significantly decrease the mean drag coefficient (around 13% for Re= 200 and 10% for Re= 300 compared to the smooth cylinder case). The grooves decreased viscous drag significantly (up to 30%) compared to pressure drag. The grooves on the cylinder also delayed the separation and reduced the extent of the recirculation zone in the cylinder wake due to the presence of recirculating flow within the individual grooves. The conclusion is that the properly designed longitudinal grooves on the cylinder in a cross-flow can be used advantageously for reducing aerodynamic loads like drag and lift force in laminar flow as well.