Study on Traveling Wave Wall Control Method for Suppressing Wake of Flow around a Circular Cylinder at Moderate Reynolds Number

Abstract

In the present paper, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) numerical simulation was utilized to investigate the effectiveness of the transverse traveling wave wall (TWW) method with the expectation of inhibiting the vortex shedding from a fixed circular cylinder. We mainly focused on the variations of four kinds of wave propagation directions, five different maximum wave amplitudes and ten different wave velocities for suppressing vortices shedding and aerodynamic forces. The aerodynamic coefficients and vortex structures under different propagation directions, wave amplitudes, wave numbers and wave velocities were investigated in detail. The results demonstrate that the alternate wake behind the cylinder can be effectively eliminated resorting to the “Downstream” propagating TWW. The mean drag coefficient is positively associated with wave velocity. Drag and lift coefficients remain relatively stable at different wave amplitudes. When the velocity ratio (wave velocity divided by incoming velocity) is 1.5, the lift coefficient fluctuation decreases to the minimum. In contrast, the optimal combination of control parameters under the present Reynolds number is concluded with “Downstream” propagating direction, maximum wave amplitude ratio of 0.02, and velocity ratio of 1.5.