University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Direct numerical simulation of flow past elliptic cylinders

Mittal, Rajat; Balachandar, S.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/112443

Description

Title
Direct numerical simulation of flow past elliptic cylinders
Author(s)
  • Mittal, Rajat
  • Balachandar, S.
Issue Date
1994-05
Keyword(s)
  • Direct Numerical Simulation
  • Flow Elliptic Cylinders
Abstract
Flow over elliptic cylinders can be considered prototypical of flow over a range of bluff bodies since the geometry allows one to study the effect of both thickness and angle-of-attack on the flow field. Therefore a careful study of this flow should provide valuable insight into the phenomenon of unsteady separation and the structure of bluff body wakes. With this in mind, a spectral collocation technique has been developed to simulate the full three-dimensional incompressible flow over elliptic cylinders and unlike spectral element and spectral multi domain techniques, here the flow is solved in a single domain. The equations are discretized on a body fitted elliptic cylindrical grid and properties of the metric associated with this coordinate system are used to solve the governing equations in an efficient manner. Other key issues including the inflow and outflow boundary conditions and time-discretization are discussed in detail with the hope that this will facilitate future simulations of similar flows. Finally, we present results of two- and three-dimensional simulations for a range of flow and geometric parameters. The results are compared with available experimental and numerical data and it is found that the Strauhal number of the vortex shedding which is an important measure of the dynamics of the flow field, matches well with established values.
Publisher
Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. College of Engineering. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Series/Report Name or Number
  • TAM R 751
  • 1994-6007
ISSN
0073-5264
Type of Resource
text
Language
eng
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/112443
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 1994 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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Technical Reports - Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (TAM) PRIMARY
TAM technical reports include manuscripts intended for publication, theses judged to have general interest, notes prepared for short courses, symposia compiled from outstanding undergraduate projects, and reports prepared for research-sponsoring agencies.