Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Supervisor

Dr.Horia Hangan

Abstract

Wake flows behind two-dimensional bodies are dominated mainly by two types of coherent structures, namely, the Karman Benard vortices and the streamwise vortices, also referred to as rolls and ribs respectively. The three-dimensional wake instabilities lead to distinct instability modes (mode-A, mode-B and mode-C or mode S) depending on the flow Reynolds number and geometric shape. The present investigation explores the mechanism by which the flow transitions take place to three-dimensionality in the near wake of a profiled leading edge and blunt trailing edge body. Experiments consisting of a combination of Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence visualizations and Particle Image Velocimetry measurements are conducted for Reynolds numbers ranging from 250 to 46000. The results indicate that three instability modes, denoted by mode-A, mode-B and mode-C, appear in the wake transition to three-dimensionality, but their order of appearance does not occur through the traditional route as observed in circular cylinder flows. It is found that mode-C instability with a spanwise spacing varying between 1.2 to 2.8D (D being the trailing edge thickness) dominates the near wake development. This result is explored further with the aim to devise a simple passive control method to mitigate vortex shedding for blunt trailing edge bodies. The effect of a trailing edge spanwise sinusoidal perturbation (SSP) is investigated for a range of Reynolds numbers (ReD) spanning the transition range from ReD = 550 up to 46000. PIV measurements at different vertical and horizontal locations are performed to study changes in the streamwise and spanwise vortices. The base drag and strength of vortex shedding decrease with wavy trailing edge compared to the straight trailing edge. Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) of the obtained PIV data indicates that the spanwise sinusoidal perturbation redistributes the relative energy, enhancing the streamwise vortices and, as a result, suppressing the Karman Benard rolls.

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