Article published by journal Physics of Fluids: Passive control of vortex shedding past finite cylinders under the effect of a free surface

Relatively little is still known about the flow and end effects on cylinders of low aspect ratio. Although this is a simple structure in shape, the flow about it is so complex! Even less is known when one wants to consider passive wake control of these structures under a free water surface (as in a spar or monocolumn platform) or for the fully submerged body.

The PhD candidate Icaro Carvalho and his supervisor PhD Prof. Gustavo R.S. Assi have investigated just that and found out that the addition of slender rods to the main body may effectively alter the flow structure and the relevance of the rods when compared to the assumption of an infinitely-long cylinder.

These advancements in the literature have been published in the journal Physics of Fluids and show promising results that may be a stepping stone for the active mechanism. DES simulations in OpenFOAM required up to 30+ million cells in our analysis (over 1400 cores of the Intel Xeon Gold 6252 Processor). You can see different representations of the flow in the video below.

 

The authors wish to acknowledge the resources provided by Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Innovation (RCGI)FAPESP and LNCC-SDumont.