Abstract:
Flow-induced rotation of a circular cylinder-splitter plate body at high Reynolds numbers has received substantial attention. This paper numerically investigates the flow-induced rotation of a circular cylinder-splitter plate body at low Reynolds numbers
Re = 40~160, which has seldom been studied. Reynolds number and plate length effects on the rotation response, flow fields, and hydrodynamic coefficients are examined. Results indicate that the critical
Re of bifurcation is proportional to the plate length. By increasing
Re, the equilibrium oscillation angle
θmean rises first and then arrives at a plateau; correspondingly, the root-mean-squared rotation angle
θrms rises sharply from almost zero and then varies slowly with
Re or remains constant. Generally,
θmean varies inversely with the plate length, while the opposite is true for
θrms; the onset
Re of the sharp rise of
θrms is larger for longer plates. The rotation frequency is proportional to
Re. When the cylinder-plate body experiences the bifurcation with a strong oscillation, an individual vortex is locked on the upper side of the plate, forming a recirculation region. Additionally, two other vortices are shed respectively from the tail and the lower side of the splitter plate. When the body is static, three stable recirculation regions of different sizes are found above, below, and behind the splitter plate. When the bifurcation disappears, the splitter plate is flanked by two identical recirculation regions. Hydrodynamic coefficients of the cylinder-plate body are significantly smaller than that of a cylinder, mainly due to the efficient control of the splitter plate on the wake flow and the recovery of rear base pressure.