NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF FLOW AROUND TWO RECTANGULAR CYLINDERS BY A DISCRETE VORTEX METHOD.

A discrete vortex method combined with a singularity method is applied to the flow around two rectangular cylinders arranged side by side. The effects of the applied boundary conditions, the size of the time step, and the gap size between two bodies on hydraulic forces (drag coefficient, lift coefficient, Strouhal number etc.) are investigated. Results show the existence of appropriate boundary condition and the steep augmentation of the interaction effect between bodies with a narrower gap, in which the location of a stagnation point changes abruptly below some value of a gap size and the time variation of a lift coefficient does not become periodic due to the steep development of the interaction effect. They are in good agreement with experiments. Consequently, it is shown that a discrete vortex method is very practical and useful in interaction problems of flow.