Author(s)

Joseph Sulemani Mloy, Yan Wang

College of Aerospace Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China.

The objective of this study is to apply numerical methods to investigate the effects of the spacing on the vortex shedding of two elastically mounted cylinders in tandem arrangement. 2-D computational simulations are carried out at low Reynolds number of 100. The study utilized a commercial software ANSYS FLUENT to carry out the computational simulations. First, a number of test cases, including flows past one and two cylinders with predetermined motions, are simulated to evaluate the solver’s accuracy. The vortex shedding and hydrodynamic forces from the current findings and those from literature show good agreement, which supports the accuracy of the current solver. Multiple simulations were the performed for flow around two elastically mounted cylinders in tandem arrangement. The subsequent relative flow fields demonstrated that for a certain range of spacing, vortex shedding was completely eliminated while it remained completely unaffected or partially reduced for other ranges of spacing. This suggests that the spacing between the two cylinders can be utilized as a passive method of suppressing vortex shedding.

Vortex Shedding, Elastically Mounted Cylinders, Tandem, Reynolds Number

Mloy, J. and Wang, Y. (2023) Vortex-Induced Vibrations of Two Cylinders in Tandem Arrangement at Low Reynolds Number. Open Journal of Fluid Dynamics, 13, 262-273. doi: 10.4236/ojfd.2023.135020.