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.

This content is only available via PDF.
You do not currently have access to this content.