Numerical Simulation of Low Reynolds Number Gusty Flow Past Two Side-By-Side Circular Cylinders

The fluid flow past circular cylinders is still being investigated to understand the complex phenomenon involved. There are several applications in the area of structural and mechanical designs where cylinders in the side-by-side arrangement are being used. In some of the applications, cylinder array has to experience flow with different gust frequencies naturally while some of the applications may have advantages by introducing artificial gust frequencies in the flow. The proposed work represents simulation results of low Reynolds number (Re = 100) gusty flow past two circular cylinders in a side-by-side arrangement with three different cases of different gust frequencies and with three different gaps between cylinders. Extended flux reconstruction-based two-dimensional fully explicit Navier–Stokes solver is used for the numerical computation with a collocated grid comprising triangular mesh which solves the complete Navier–Stokes equation in the physical plane itself. To clearly understand the flow features associated with wake pattern streamlines and vorticity contours are evaluated. The Strouhal number is computed to derive the vortex shedding frequency. The variations in flow properties for three gusty flow cases with three different values of transverse gap are investigated and concluded.