Numerical Study of Vortex Shedding From a Circular Cylinder in Linear Shear Flow

A three-dimensional numerical simulation of linearly sheared flow past a circular cylinder has been performed for a shear parameter β of 0.02 and a mean Reynolds number of 131.5. A cylinder of 24 diameters span is considered. A second-order accurate finite volume scheme is used to integrate the unsteady Navier-Stokes equations. Present computations confirm both qualitatively and quantitatively, the aspects of cellular shedding as reported by several investigators through experimental studies. Up to five constant frequency cells of obliquely shedding vortices are observed. The nondimensional frequencies of these cells are observed to be lower than those given by parallel shedding correlations at the equivalent Reynolds numbers. It is also observed that the cell boundaries continuously move in time. Detailed distributions of vorticity and velocity components are presented to describe the flow. The influence of end-wall boundary conditions is studied by computing two cases, one with free-slip condition, and the other with no-slip condition on disks of radius of five cylinder diameters.