Unsteady wake interference of unequal-height tandem cylinders mounted in a turbulent boundary layer

Abstract

The unsteady wake interference of unequal-height tandem finite wall-mounted cylinders (FWMCs) fully submerged in a turbulent boundary layer (TBL) was investigated using time-resolved particle image velocimetry. The aspect ratios of the cylinders were fixed at $h/d = 5.3$ for the upstream cylinder (UC) and $H/d = 7.0$ for the downstream cylinder (DC) to achieve a height ratio of $h/H = 0.75$ , where d is the diameter of the cylinders. The Reynolds number based on the cylinder diameter was $Re = 5540$ and the submergence ratio was $\delta /H = 1.2$ , where $\delta $ is the TBL thickness. Three main flow regimes of tandem FWMCs were examined by varying the centre-to-centre spacing ( $s$ ) between the cylinders: extended-body ( $s/d = 2$ ), reattachment ( $s/d = 4$ ) and co-shedding ( $s/d = 6$ ) regimes. These test cases denoted as SR2, SR4 and SR6, respectively, were compared with a reference isolated cylinder (SC) with an aspect ratio similar to that of the DC. Spatio-temporal analysis of the flow field showed that the gap region of SR2 is characterized by a strong downwash of alternating low- and high-momentum fluid induced by the approach flow that is deflected from the unsheltered portion of the DC. In contrast, the gap region of SR4 and SR6 exhibited both downwash and upwash flow with a saddle point that moves closer to the mid-height of the UC as the spacing ratio increases. The upwash and downwash shear layers were associated with small-scale vortices with Strouhal numbers larger than that of the Kármán vortex shedding in the spanwise shear layers. The wake structure behind the DC was significantly altered compared with the SC due to sheltering effects, and the spacing ratio had a significant impact on the spatio-temporal evolution of the vortices.