Near-moving-wall flows past three tandem elliptical cylinders at low Reynolds number of 150

Abstract

Dynamic flows past three tandem elliptic cylinders of equal spacing in parallel arrangement with a moving wall are numerically conducted by the lattice Boltzmann method. The gap ratio (G/D, where G and D are the gap between the wall surface and cylinder center and major axis, respectively) from 0.6 to 2.5 and spacing ratio (L/D, where L is the distance of two adjacent cylinder centers) from 1.5 to 10 are examined at Reynolds number of Re = 150 (based on D). The desired analysis correlates variations of hydrodynamic coefficients, wake structures, and spectral analysis in wide space of G/D and L/D with underlying fluid mechanics. The flow is highly adjustable in G/D−L/D space, dividing into six distinct regimes: overshoot, continuous reattachment, alternative reattachment, wavy, meandering, and coshedding, which are spatially classified into four modes because of flow interference, namely, shear layer, primary, two-layered, and secondary vortex shedding modes. The transition between adjacent modes defines three boundaries. The first boundary always occurs behind the middle or downstream cylinder, whereas the second and third boundaries occur between the upstream and middle cylinders and the downstream cylinder wake. Due to the near-wall flow interference, the hydrodynamic coefficients are highly changeable in L/D−G/D space, signifying the crucially lower drag coefficient of the middle and downstream cylinders than that of a single cylinder. A small G/D determines the increase in lift coefficient of the upstream cylinder as a result of the ground effect, while the shadowing effect of the upstream cylinder induces identical Strouhal numbers of the middle and downstream cylinders.