Numerical Study on the Flow Past a Twisted Elliptic Cylinder With Subcritical Reynolds Number

Large eddy simulation of flow past a torsional cylinder has been carried out at a Reynolds number of 3900 based on the cylinder diameter and the free stream velocity using finite volume method. The torsional cylinder has been formed by rotating the elliptic cross sectional area along the spanwise direction. For an ellipse, different eccentricities are considered to observe the effect of eccentricity on the flow fields. The excellent comparisons with previous studies for the cases of a smooth cylinder and a wavy cylinder having sinusoidal variation in cross sectional area along the spanwise direction guarantee the accuracy of present numerical methods. The effect of eccentricity on the drag and lift coefficients representing the fluid flow characteristics has been investigated by comparing with those of the smooth cylinder, resulting in enhancement of drag reduction and suppression of vortex-induced vibration. The isosurface of swirling strength has been adopted to identify the vortical structures in the turbulent wake.