Wake control of a square cylinder: Impinging the vortex cores with dual flexible splitter plates

Abstract

Numerous works have been conducted to study the wake control of a bluff body and more efficient strategies are still what we seek for. This paper studies the complex fluid–structure interaction (FSI) problem of a square cylinder mounted with dual flexible splitter plates from a new perspective: impinging the vortex core with flapping plate tip. The Reynolds number (Re) based on the side length of the square cylinder is fixed at 332.6. The splitter plates are attached at both sides of the square cylinder. Structural parameters, such as plate length and bending stiffness, are considered to achieve an optimal arrangement of this configuration. Compared to the traditional single splitter plate arrangement, only a short splitter length is needed for this dual splitter plates configuration. Flow visualization indicates that the drag reduction is associated with the increase of base pressure and the lift suppression is related to the inhabitation of the interaction of the shear layer and split effect of the tip vortices. The dimensionless bending stiffness plays a vital role in determining the behavior of the splitter plate. Two vibration modes, i.e., off-center vibration and asymmetry vibration modes are captured and the up and down splitter plates tend to vibration in-phase. The Lissajous trajectories of the free tip mainly exhibits arc-shape and sickle-shape. Given the performance of the square cylinder-dual splitter plates configuration, splitter length of l/L=1.5 is an optimal configuration, which is less affected by flexural rigidity. The maximum drag reduction could reach 23.1% and the lift force exerting on this configuration does not increase significantly, which is beneficial for the structural stability.