• Wind and Structures
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.91-100
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• 2022

Numerical simulations are conducted to investigate the uniform flow (UF) and sinusoidal streamwise flow (SSF) over an oscillating 5:1 rectangular cylinder with harmonic heaving motion at initial angles of attack of α = 0° and 3° using two-dimensional, unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) equations. First, the aerodynamic parameters of a stationary 5:1 rectangular cylinder in UF are compared with the previous experimental and numerical data to validate the capability of the computationally efficient two-dimensional URANS simulations. Then, the unsteady flow field and aerodynamic forces of the oscillating 5:1 rectangular cylinder in SSF are analysed and compared with those in UF to explore the effect of SSF on the rectangular cylinder. Results show that the alternative vortex shedding is disturbed by SSF both at α = 0° and 3°, resulting in a considerable decrease in the vortex-induced force, whereas the unsteady lift component induced by cylinder motion remains almost unchanged in the SSF comparing with that in UF. Notably, the strong buffeting forces are observed at α = 3° and the energy associated with unsteady lift is primarily because of the oscillations of SSF. In addition, the components of unsteady lift induced by the coupling effects of SSF and cylinder motion are discussed in detail.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.137-149
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• 2022

In this paper, the fluctuating lift and drag forces on 5:1 rectangular cylinders with two different geometric scales in three turbulent flow-fields are investigated. The study is particularly focused on understanding the influence of the ratio of turbulence integral length scale to structure characteristic dimension (the length scale ratio). The results show that both fluctuating lift and drag forces are influenced by the length scale ratio. For the model with the larger length scale ratio, the corresponding fluctuating force coefficient is larger, while the spanwise correlation is weaker. However, the degree of influence of the length scale ratio on the two fluctuating forces are different. Compared to the fluctuating drag, the fluctuating lift is more sensitive to the variation of the length scale ratio. It is also found through spectral analysis that for the fluctuating lift, the change of length scale ratio mainly leads to the variation in the low frequency part of the loading, while the fluctuating drag generally follows the quasi-steady theory in the low frequency, and the slope of the drag spectrum at high frequencies changes with the length scale ratio. Then based on the experimental data, two empirical formulas considering the influence of length scale ratio are proposed for determining the lift and drag aerodynamic admittances of a 5:1 rectangular cylinder. Furthermore, a simple relationship is established to correlate the turbulence parameter with the fluctuating force coefficient, which could be used to predict the fluctuating force on a 5:1 rectangular cylinder under different parameter conditions.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.379-397
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• 2013

Large Eddy Simulations (LES) were carried out to investigate the aerodynamic characteristics of a rectangular cylinder with side ratio B/D=5 at Reynolds number Re=22,000 (based on cylinder thickness). Particular attention was devoted to the effects of velocity shear in the oncoming flow. Time-averaged and unsteady flow patterns around the cylinder were studied to enhance understanding of the effects of velocity shear. The simulation results showed that the Strouhal number has no significant variation with oncoming velocity shear, while the peak fluctuation frequency of the drag coefficient becomes identical to that of the lift coefficient with increase in velocity shear. The intermittently-reattached flow that features the aerodynamics of the 5:1 rectangular cylinder in non-shear flow becomes more stably reattached on the high-velocity side, and more stably separated on the low-velocity side. Both the mean and fluctuating drag coefficients increase slightly with increase in velocity shear. The mean and fluctuating lift and moment coefficients increase almost linearly with velocity shear. Lift force acts from the high-velocity side to the low-velocity side, which is similar to that of a circular cylinder but opposite to that of a square cylinder under the same oncoming shear flow.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.73-80
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• 2022

This paper presents a study on amplitude-dependent self-excited aerodynamic forces of a 5:1 rectangular cylinder through free vibration wind tunnel test. The sectional model was spring-supported in a single degree of freedom (SDOF) in torsion, and it is found that the amplitude of the free vibration cylinder model was not divergent in the post-flutter stage and was instead of various stable amplitudes varying with the wind speed. The amplitude-dependent aerodynamic damping is determined using Hilbert Transform of response time histories at different wind speeds in a smooth flow. An approach is proposed to extract aerodynamic derivatives as nonlinear functions of the amplitude of torsional motion at various reduced wind speeds. The results show that the magnitude of A2^*, which is related to the negative aerodynamic damping, increases with increasing wind speed but decreases with vibration amplitude, and the magnitude of A3^* also increases with increasing wind speed but keeps stable with the changing amplitude. The amplitude-dependent aerodynamic derivatives derived from the tests can also be used to estimate the post-flutter response of 5:1 rectangular cylinders with different dynamic parameters via traditional flutter analysis.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.15-27
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• 2022

This work comes within the framework of the "Benchmark on the Aerodynamics of a Rectangular Cylinder" that investigates a rectangular cylinder of length-to-depth ratio equal to 5. The present study reports and discusses velocity fields acquired using planar Particle Image Velocitmetry for several angles of attack and Reynolds numbers. In particular, for a cylinder depth-based Reynolds number of 2 × 10⁴ and zero incidence angle, the flow features along the lateral (parallel to the freestream) upper and lower surfaces of the cylinder are reported. Using first and second order statistics of the velocity field, the main flow features are discussed, especially the size and location of the time-averaged flow structures and the distribution of the Reynolds stresses. The variation of the flow features with the incidence is also studied considering angles of attack up to 6°. It is shown that the time-averaged flow is fully detached for incidence higher than 2°. For an angle of attack of 0°, the effects of the Reynolds number varying between 5 × 10³ and 2 × 10⁴ are investigated looking at flow statistics. It is shown that the time-averaged location of the reattachment point and the shape and position of the time-averaged main vortex are mostly constant with the Reynolds number. However, the size of the inner region located below the time-averaged shear layer and just downstream the leading edge corner appears to be strongly dependent on the Reynolds number.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.65-75
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• 2019

A heated square cylinder (with height $A^*$) is kept parallel to the cold wall at a fixed gap height $0.5A^*$ from the wall. Another adiabatic rectangular cylinder (of same height $A^*$ and width $0.5A^*$) is placed upstream in an inline tandem arrangement. The spacing between the two cylinders is fixed at $3.0A^*$. The inlet flow is taken as Couette-Poiseuille flow based non-linear velocity profile. The conventional fluid (also known as base fluid) is chosen as water (W) whereas the nanoparticle material is selected as $Al_2O_3$. Numerical simulations are performed by using SIMPLE algorithm based Finite Volume approach with staggered grid arrangement. The dependencies of hydrodynamic and heat transfer characteristics of the cylinder on non-dimensional parameters governing the nanofluids and the fluid flow are explored here. A critical discussion is made on the mechanism of improvement/reduction (due to the presence of the upstream cylinder) of heat transfer and drag coefficient, in comparison to those of an isolated cylinder. It is observed that the heat transfer increases with the increase in the non-linearity in the incident velocity profile at the inlet. For the present range studied, particle concentration has a negligible effect on heat transfer.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.47-53
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• 2015

This study performed numerical simulation to elucidate the characteristics of flow past a rectangular cylinder with various values of the aspect ratio(AR) of the cylinder. We calculated the flow field, force coefficients and Strouhal number of vortex shedding depending on the Reynolds number(Re) and the aspect ratio. The $AR{\approx}1$ is preferred for drag reduction, and 0.375$AR{\approx}0$ is recommended if suppression of the lift-coefficient fluctuation and the shedding frequency is desirable. Furthermore the criticality of the Hopf bifurcation is also reported for each AR.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.59-74
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• 2024

Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is used to explore the influence of vibration frequency and amplitude on the aerodynamic performance of a rectangular cylinder with an aspect ratio of B/D=5 (B: breadth; D: depth of cylinder) at a Reynolds number of 22,000 near resonance frequency. In smooth flow conditions, the research employs a sequence of three-dimensional simulations under forced vibration with diverse frequency ratios f_e / f_o = 0.8-1.2 (f_e : oscillation frequency; f_o : Strouhal frequency when the rectangular cylinder is stationary ) and oscillation amplitudes A_h/D = 0.05 - 0.3. The individual influences of f_e / f_o and A_h/D on the characteristics of integrated and distributed aerodynamic forces are the focal points of discussion. For the integrated aerodynamic force, particular emphasis is placed on the analysis of the dependence of velocity-proportional component C₁ and displacement-proportional component C₂ of unsteady aerodynamic force on amplitude and frequency ratio. Near the resonance frequency, the dependencies of C₁ and C₂ on amplitude are stronger than that of frequency ratio. For the distributed aerodynamic force, the increase in frequency and amplitude promotes the position of the main vortex core and reattachment to the leading edge in the streamwise direction. In the spanwise direction, vibration enhances the spanwise correlation of aerodynamic force to weaken the three-dimensional effect of the flow field, and a lower frequency ratio and larger amplitude amplify this effect.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.293-304
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• 2018

A numerical study is conducted on the flow characteristics of a rectangular cylinder (chord-to-width ratio C/W = 2 - 10) mounted close to a rigid wall at gap-to-width ratios G/W = 0.25 - 6.25. The effects of G/W and C/W on the Strouhal number, vortex structure, and time-mean drag and lift forces are examined. The results reveal that both G/W and C/W have strong influences on vortex structure, which significantly affects the forces on the cylinder. An increase in G/W leads to four different flow regimes, namely no vortex street flow (G/W < 0.75), single-row vortex street flow ($0.75{\leq}G/W{\leq}1.25$), inverted two-row vortex street flow ($1.25<G/W{\leq}2.5$), and two-row vortex street flow (G/W > 2.5). Both Strouhal number and time-mean drag are more sensitive to C/W than to G/W. For a given G/W, Strouhal number grows with C/W while time-mean drag decays with C/W, the growth and decay being large between C/W = 2 and 4. The time-mean drag is largest in the single-row vortex street regime, contributed by a large pressure on the front surface, regardless of C/W. A higher C/W, in general, leads to a higher time-mean lift. The maximum time-mean lift occurs for C/W = 10 at G/W = 0.75, while the minimum time-mean lift appears for C/W = 2 at the same G/W. The impact of C/W on the time-mean lift is more substantial in single-row vortex regime. The effect of G/W on the time-mean lift is larger at a larger C/W.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2022

In this work the flow through a hollow porous 5:1 rectangular cylinder made of perforated plates is numerically investigated by means of 2D URANS based simulations. Two approaches are adopted to account for the porous surfaces: in the first one the pores are explicitly modeled, so providing a detailed representation of the flow. In the second one, the porous surfaces are modeled by means of pressure jumps, which allow to take into account the presence of pores without reproducing the flow details. Results obtained by using the two aforementioned techniques are compared aiming at evaluating differences and similarities, as well as identifying the main flow features which might cause discrepancies. Results show that, even in the case of pores remarkably smaller than the immersed body, their arrangement can lead to local mechanisms able to affect the global flow arrangement, so limiting the accuracy of pressure jumps based simulations. Despite that, time-averaged fields often show a reasonable agreement between the two approaches.