Investigation of flow around two bluff bodies

• Main Author: Tan, William.
• Other Authors: Yeung Wai Hung, William
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering::Fluid mechanics
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/16869
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Flow structure around two cylinders at Re = 0.8 x 104 has been investigated. The distance between the centres of 2 cylinders in side-by-side and tandem arrangement have been varied to study the proximity effects of one bluff body on another in a flow stream. The pressure distributions on the cylinder surfaces at different gap distances and at different arrangements were recorded. Subsequently, drag and lift values on the cylinder surfaces were obtained through the integration of the pressure coefficients. Their relations with changing gap distances at different arrangements were also analyzed and plotted in graphs using MATLAB. Other flow characteristic properties such as the flow separation angles on the cylinders have also been included. There is also the examination of the flow visualization patterns using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software. The flow patterns, in particular, the way the vortices are shed have been examined. For both side-by-side and tandem arrangements, vortices from the cylinders shed in a flip flop manner. The vortices begin shedding in phase with each other but there exist a certain gap distance whereby vortex shedding occurs out of phase.