Hydrodynamic Force Measurements on a Circular Cylinder Fitted With Peripheral Control Cylinders: Preliminary Results on the Development of VIV Suppressors

Recent achievements in controlling the boundary layer by moving surfaces have been encouraging the development and investigation of passive suppressors of vortex-induced vibration. Within this context, the main purpose of the present work is to evaluate the suppression of vortex shedding of a plain cylinder surrounded by two, four and eight smaller control cylinders. Experiments have been carried out on a fixed circular cylinder to investigate the effect of the control cylinders over drag reduction. Control cylinders with diameter of d/D = 0.06 were tested, where D is the diameter of the main cylinder. The gap between the main cylinder and the control cylinders varied between G/D = 0.05 and 0.15. Experiments with a plain cylinder in the Reynolds number range from 5,000 to 50,000 have been performed to serve as reference. It was found that a cylinder fitted with four control cylinders presented less drag and fluctuating lift than cylinders fitted with two or eight small cylinders.