Uniform Flow Past a Rotary Oscillating Circular Cylinder

In this paper, we study uniform flow past a rotary oscillating circular cylinder computationally. The objective is to determine the effect the oscillating rotation has on the lift and drag forces acting on the cylinder, on the wake structure, and on vortex shedding. A combination of finite-difference and spectral methods is used to calculate the three-dimensional incompressible unsteady Navier-Stokes equations in primitive variable form in nonorthogonal curvilinear coordinates. Wake turbulence is modeled by an LES technique. The Reynolds number considered is Re = 1.5×10⁴, which is the same as that in the experimental study of Tokumaru & Dimotakis (1991), who suggested this technique as a means of reducing drag. We fix the forcing amplitude at the moderate value of Ω = 2 and vary the forcing frequency in a wide range to study its effect on the flow. The resonance phenomenon and drag reduction effect are carefully examined. The wake structure and vortex shedding process is visualized by means of computational streaklines. These results have a practical application in offshore engineering.