Computational investigation of drag reduction on a rotationally oscillating cylinder

¹ Graduate Aeronautical Laboratories California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
² Cray Research, Inc. c/o Jet Propulsion Laboratories MS 301-455, 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadenaa, CA 91109, USA

Abstract

The reduction of drag on a circular cylinder in two-dimensional incompressible flow, achieved using oscillatory body rotation, is investigated to reveal the physics responsible for the force reduction. Flow is computationally simulated at Reynolds numbers of 100, 300, and 15000 for a small group of sinusoidal body rotations to gain an understanding of the mechanisms which can control forces in such situations. It is observed that, for certain rotational parameters, drag is reduced over a range of Reynolds numbers from the two-dimensional base flow. At Re=15000, an interesting boundary layer instability is observed which could explain the dramatic drag reduction previously noted in an experiment on this flow. Simulations are performed with a high-resolution viscous vortex method which utilizes the particle strength exchange technique for diffusion and multipole expansions for fast summations. Different approaches for computing and analyzing forces will be discussed as well as a "hybridization" applied to the scheme to allow particle merging in the far wake.