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CFDanalysis of2Dunsteadyflow aroundasquarecylinder

Gera.B,PavanK.Sharma,SinghR.K
ReactorSafetyDivision,BhabhaAtomicResearchCentre,Trombay,Mumbai,India400085
pa1.sharma@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Unsteadyflowaroundbluffbodiesisanareaofgreatresearchforscientistforseveralyears.
Flowsaroundbuildings,chimneysareexampleswherethefluidis inmotion.Atmospheric
dispersion of pollutants around bluff bodies has intensified the need to understand wake
behavior.Thevortexsheddingfrequencydependsondifferentaspectsoftheflowfieldsuch
as the end conditions, blockage ratio of the flow passage. In the present work a numerical
simulationwascarriedoutforflowpastasquarecylindertoseethewakebehaviour.Atwo
dimensional unsteady flowpast a square cylinder has been investigated numericallyfor the
Reynold number (Re) considered in the range 50250 so that flow is laminar. The main
objectives of this study were to capture the features of flows past a square cylinder in a
domain with the use of CFD. Finite volume method has been used with staggered grid
arrangement. The incompressible SIMPLE algorithm was used for the velocity pressure
coupling. The second order discretisation was used both for space and time. Power law
schemewasusedonanonuniformgridandfortimediscretisationCrankNicholsonwasused.
A high resolution grid has been used to avoid spurious oscillations and to keep the errors
withinlimits.Theliftcoefficientandvelocitycomponentinthewakeregionweremonitored
forcalculationofStrouhalnumber.ThevariationofStrouhalnumberwithReynoldnumber
wasfoundfromtheanalysis.
Keywords:VortexShedding,CFD,Strauhalnumber,SIMPLE,dragcoefficient
1.Introduction
Overthelast100years,theflowaroundslendercylindricalbluffbodieshasbeenthesubject
ofintenseresearch,mainlyowingtotheengineeringsignificanceofstructuraldesign,flow
inducedvibration,andacousticemissions.Inrecentyears,suchstudieshavereceivedagreat
deal of attention as a result of increasing computer capabilities, improvements in
experimental measurement techniques. The vast majority of these investigations have been
carried out for the flow around a circular cylinder, whereas, from an engineering point of
view,itisalsonecessarytostudyflowaroundotherbluffbodyshapes,suchassharpedged
rectangular crosssectional cylinders. Structures that typically have rectangular or near
rectangular cross sections include architectural features on buildings, the buildings
themselves,beams,fencesandoccasionally staysandsupportsininternalandexternal flow
geometries.Whenthesestructuresareexposedtocrossflowtheseparationtakesplacesfrom
the upper and lower portion of the body. Due to instability the phenomenon of vortex
sheddingdevelopsknownasvonKarmanVortexStreet.Whenscaledwiththecrossstream
bluffbodydimensionandincoming velocitymagnitude,thecriticalReynoldnumberwhere
the vortex shedding start is of the order of50 for a zero angle of incidence. In the present
workanalysiswaslimitedtoReynoldnumberlessthan250,belowRelessthan250theflow
remains laminar and wake region is two dimensional in nature. In this range the vortex
shedding is characterised bya very well definedfrequency. The vortex shedding frequency

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andmoregenerallythewakebehaviordependondifferentaspectsoftheflowfieldsuchas
the side and end conditions, blockage ratio of the flow passage, upstream velocity and the
aspectratio ofthestructures.
A significant amount of work has been published in many literatures for experimental and
numerical study of flow past a square cylinder. Experimental results for Reynolds number
<200 for zero angle of incidence are available in Okajima [1], Davis and Moore [2].
Extensive literature is available for numerical investigation on 2D flow around square
cylinder is available. Investigation has been carriedout for variousparameters i.e.effect of
Reynoldsnumber,effectofoutletboundarycondition,effectofdomainextent,effectofgrid
size,effectoftime step,effectofblockageratioetc.Ineachofthosestudies,onlysomeof
theseaspectsareinvestigatedandnoinvestigationhasbeenfoundwhichextensivelycovers
alltheseaspects.
The distance from the computational inlet to the cylinder, Xu ranges from 4 (Kelkar and
Patankar[3])to125(StegellandRockliff[4]).AsshownbySohankaret.al.[5],whenusing
afreestreamconditionattheinlet,thenecessarydistanceforobtainingresultsindependentof
thisinletlocationisabout10units.WhenXuwasincreasedfrom7.5to11.1units,therewas
a 9.3% decrease in RMS lift (the RMS lift is perhaps the best overall indicator when
comparingresultsinvortexsheddingflows).AfurtherincreaseuptoXu=18gavenegligible
changesintheglobalresults(lessthan1%).Forallreferences,afreestreamconditionU=1
andV=0isprescribedattheinlet.
The effect of blockage was investigated numerically by Stansby and Slaouti [6],
Anagnostopoulos et. al. [7], Behr et. al. [8] and Turki et. al. [9]. It is shown that with
increasing blockage parameter the Strouhal number anddrag coefficient increase, while the
basesuctionandstagnationpressurecoefficientsincrease.AthighReynoldsnumbersthisis
alsoobservedexperimentallyforrectangularcylinders,circularcylindersandflatplates.
The influence of domain size, especially the location of the outflow boundary, Xd is
investigatedbySohankaret.al.[5]andBehret.al.[10].ItisshownthatifXdisselectedless
than 2.5 from the body, then the temporal periodicity of the solution is lost. The minimum
valueof Xd is found tobe6.5. It was also concluded that reliable results forboth types of
boundary conditions areobtainable with Xd14.5. Sohankaret.al.[5] have investigated the
influence of Xd between 3 and 26 using the standard Neumann condition at the outlet
(hereafterreferredtoastheNBC)andConvectiveconditionattheoutlet(hereafterreferredto
astheCBC).Theresultsindicatethatinordertoobtainresultsindependentoftheoutlet,Xd
mustbearound26forNBCattheoutlet.
Some refinement studies are carriedoutby Sohankar et. al. [5] [11] andFranke et al. [12].
Some limited studies with different time steps and nearwall resolutions were performed.
They conclude that the distance of the first gridpoint (d) away from thebody has a strong
influence on the results. For flow around square cylinders they used d=0.004. A grid
refinementstudyforflowaroundasquarecylinderatRe=500waspresentedbyArnaletal.
[13].Theyemploythreegrids(1196137,60669and40645)andreportsomesignificantgrid
dependences. For example, the RMS lift was decreased three times when going from the
finest to the coarsest grid. For a square cylinder at zero incidence the effects of time step,
distribution of grid points, size of cells adjacent to the body, upstream and downstream
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extentsofthecalculationdomainandblockagewerethoroughlyinvestigatedbySohankaret
al. [11]. The influence of Reynolds number from 45 to 250 at blockage 5% was also
presented. In that study, when using a highly nonuniform grid, some recommendations for
therequiredsizeofthedomain,griddistribution,timestepandspatialresolutioninthenear
body region are provided. These recommendations have directly been used in the present
study.
The present work is aimed at understanding the wake characteristics in laminar wake of a
squarecylinder.Anumericalsimulationapproachhasbeenadoptedinthepresentwork.The
flowconfigurationcomprisesofasquarecylinderplacednormaltofreestreaminaninfinite
medium. The Reynolds number based on the cylinder height and the average velocity
consideredinthenumericalstudyisintherange50250.
2.GoverningEquations andBoundaryConditions
FlowpastasquarecylinderhasbeensimulatedbysolvingnumericallytheunsteadyNavier
Stokesequationsforan incompressiblefluidinatwodimensionalgeometry.Theequations
forcontinuityandmomentummaybeexpressedinthedimensionlessformasfollows:
Continuity
u

(1)

=0

Xmomentum
u
t

(uu)+

(vu) = -

2
2
1 u u
(
+
)
Re x2 y2

(2)

Ymomentum
v
t

(uv)+

(vv) = -

p
y

2
2
1 v v
(
+
)
Re x2 y2

(3)

Intheaboveequations,thevelocitiesarenondimensionalisedwiththeaverage velocity Uin

at the inlet, all lengths with the obstacle height B and thepressurebyUin2. The geometry
considered for analysis is schematically shown in Figure 1. The dimensions related to the
geometry are height of computational domain (H) =18.0 thus giving a blockage of 5.5%,
extent of domain upstreamof body (Xu)=8.5 extent of domain downstreamofbody (Xd)
=17. The boundary conditions employed for the present investigation are (Figure 1) at the
inlet,auniformvelocityhasbeenprescribedUin=1.0andVin=0.0.Atoutflowconditionwas
used which does not affect the flow in the upstream. To this end, the convective boundary
conditionshavebeenused.Theconfiningboundaries(topandbottom)weremodeledasthe
slip boundaries. Noslip (u=v=0) boundary conditions were used for the velocities on the
obstaclesurface.

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3.NumericalDetails
The flow was assumed to be two dimensional and unsteady. An incompressible SIMPLE
finitevolumecodewasusedwithastaggeredgridarrangement.CrankNicholsonschemeof
secondorderwasusedintimeandasecondorderschemehasbeenusedforconvectiveand
diffusive terms the pressure was treated fully implicitly. The timemarching calculations
were started with the fluid at rest. A constant time step Dt =0.025 was used for all
calculations. During the iterative sequence, convergence was assessed at the end of each
iterationonthebasisoftheresidualsourcecriterion,whichcomparesthesumoftheabsolute
residual sources over all the control volumes in the computational field, for each finite
volumeequation.

Figure1:Computationaldomainfortheflowaroundasquarecylinder

Figure2: Gridusedforcomputation
Outsidearegionfromthebodywhichextends2unitsupstream,downstreamandsideways,
thegriddistributionwasmadeuniformwithaconstantcellsize D.Downstreamofthebody,

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Dwassetto0.15.Inotherparts, D=0.25wasused.Thedistancefromthecylindersurfaceto
thenearestgridpointdefines d.Forthisstudy, d=0.004ontheupstreamsurface,0.006on
side surfaces, and 0.008 on the downstream surface was used. The hyperbolic tangent
function was used for stretching the cell sizes between these limits d and D.The numberof
nodesdistributedoveroneunitlengthofthecylindersurfacewassetequalto25forallsides
ofthebody.Allthecomputationshavebeencarriedoutusingthegridsizeof211X137.The
gridusedforthecomputationisshowninfigure2.Oneofthemaindifficultiesencountered
in numerical solution of the NavierStokes equations is that of boundary conditions,
especially the outflow boundaries. This difficulty is due to the fact that the computational
domain is bounded whereas the physical domain is unbounded. Thus the computational
domain should be truncated from the real domain by using artificial open boundary
conditions such as Neumann (NBC) or convective (CBC) boundary conditions. For high
accuracy the computational domain must sometimes be very large and this increases CPU
times and the costof computation.Thusproperboundary conditions can reduce the size of
thecomputationaldomainanddecreasethecost.Inmostnumericalstudies,especiallythose
which involve vortex shedding, the outlet boundary condition is a very important issue. A
suitableoutflowboundaryshouldpermittheflowtoexitthedomainwithasmoothdischarge
of vortices, without affecting the flow in the domain near the outlet and nearbody flow.
Incorrect location of outflow boundaries and nonsuitable boundary conditions might
seriouslyaffectthewholeflowstructure,especially nearthebody.Forfinitedifferenceand
finite volume discretization the NBC and CBC are the two most popular outlet boundary
conditions. As per the recommendation of Sohankar et al. (1998) CBC has been used in
presentcomputation.IngeneraltheCBCcanbewrittenforbothUandVas
U
U
i
i
+ U
=0
c x
t

(4)

Where Uc is the convective velocity/phase speed (U1=U U2=V). The CBC has been tested
with both variable and constant (uniform) velocity, with negligible differences in the
statisticalresults.Thusinthisstudy,asrecommendedbySohankaretal.(1998),thevalueof
Uc wassettoUin.Thediscretizedformofthisequationwasimplementedas
Dt
n+ 1
n
n
n
U
= U U (U - U
)
N
N (Dx)
c N
N - 1
N

(5)

Wherethesuperscriptdenotesthetime levelandthe indexNreferstothestreamwise grid

numberattheoutlet.
4.Results andDiscussion
Investigation was carried out for a range of Reynolds number from 50250 based on the
parameters recommended in literature. Strouhal Number (St), total drag coefficient (CD),
pressure drag coefficient (CDP), RMS lift coefficient (CL), surface averaged frontal side
pressure coefficient (CPf), surface averaged top/bottom sidepressure coefficient (CPtb),base
pressurecoefficientatcenterline(CPbc)andstagnationpressurecoefficientatcenterline(CPs)
were determined from numerical calculation. The results at various Reynolds number are

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giveninTable1.UptoReynoldsNumber50,theflowissteady.BetweenReynoldsnumbers
50to55,instabilityoccursandvortexsheddingappearsandflowbecomesunsteady(Figure
3).ThusourpredictionisingoodagreementforzeroangleofincidencethecriticalReynolds
numberis52asreportedbySohankaretal.(1998).
Table1: EffectofReynoldsnumber
Re
50
55
75
100
125
150
175
200
225
250

St

0.107
0.122
0.129
0.136
0.141
0.143
0.143
0.140
0.134

CD
1.615
1.565
1.524
1.461
1.423
1.411
1.472
1.487
1.503
1.526

CDP
1.473
1.446
1.455
1.439
1.412
1.491
1.512
1.540
1.561
1.579

CL

0.067
0.101
0.157
0.212
0.252
0.295
0.329
0.365
0.404

CPf
0.981
0.964
0.896
0.857
0.849
0.836
0.832
0.828
0.824
0.836

0.0050

CPtb
0.847
0.841
0.936
1.055
1.132
1.231
1.281
1.320
1.315
1.288

CPbc
0.735
0.727
0.812
0.924
1.049
1.108
1.159
1.205
1.256
1.293

CPs
1.204
1.196
1.161
1.143
1.135
1.132
1.128
1.125
1.121
1.119

0.06
0.04
LiftCoefficient

LiftCoefficient

0.0025

0.0000

0.0025

0.02
0.00
0.02
0.04
0.06

0.0050
100

200

300
Time

400

500

600

100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900

Time

0.3

0.6

0.2

0.4
LiftCoefficient

LiftCoefficient

0.1
0.0

0.2
0.0

0.1

0.2

0.2

0.4

0.3

0.6
0

100

200
Time

300

50

100

150

200

250

300

Time

Figure3: LiftCoefficientwithtimefor(a)Re=50(b)Re=55(c)Re=100(d)Re=200

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Figure4showsthevariationoftotaldragcoefficientwithtimeforRe=55.Initiallythereisa
sharp drop in the drag coefficient then it remains constant at low value followed by a
transitional phase leading to fully developed vortex shedding phase. At high Reynolds
numberthisconstantlowvaluephaseremainsforaveryshorttime.Initiallythereisadropin
thedragcoefficientleadstoaminimumvalueofdragcoefficientimmediatelyfollowedbya
transition to fully developedphase at Re=100(Figure4).Figure5depicts the valuesof CD
and St Vs Re for the present work and comparison with other published results. There is a
goodagreementbetweentheresultsqualitatively.Quantitativelythereisslightdifferencein
absolute values of the parameters that may be attributed to strong sensitivity to various
numerical parameters, blockage ratio at this low value of Re. Figure 6 shows the
instantaneous vorticity and stream function contour for Re=75. The same for Re=175 has
beenshowninFigure7.
5.Conclusion
CFDanalysiswascarriedoutforunsteady,incompressible2Dflowaroundasquarecylinder
atzeroangleofincidenceforRerangingfrom50to250.Thevortexsheddingstartsbetween
Re 50 and 55 if angle of incidence is zero. The vortex shedding is exhibited by a single
dominated frequency for Re>55. The study also predicted the influence of Reon quantities
such as Strouhal number and lift, drag, and base suction coefficients. The predicted results
showgoodtrendswithotherreportedresults.Experimentalstudiesonthisflowfortheselow
Reynolds numbers are very scarce. Nevertheless, when considering the effects of different
blockages, experimental uncertainties and numerical inaccuracies, the agreement seems
satisfactory.Accuratemeasurements,especiallyatlowRearestillneeded.Inparticular,the
questionofthetransitionalReynoldsnumber,i.e.thecriticalReabovewhichtheflowceases
tobelaminarandcannotbemadetwodimensional,needsfurtherinvestigation.
2.0
1.64

DragCoefficient

DragCoefficient

1.8
1.62

1.60

1.58

1.6

1.4

1.2
1.56
1.0
0

100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900

Time

100

200

300

400

Time

Figure4: DragCoefficientwithtimefor(a)Re=55(b)Re=100

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Present
Sohankaret.al.1995
Sharma&Eswaran2004
Davis&Moore1982
Sohankaret.al.1998
Sahaet.al.2003
Sohankaret.al.1997

1.90
1.85
1.80
1.75

0.18
0.16
0.14

St

CD

1.70
1.65

0.12
Present
Sohankaret.al.1995
Okajima1982
Davis&Moore1982
Sohankaret.al.1998
Sahaet.al.2003
Sohankaret.al.1997

0.10

1.60
1.55

0.08

1.50
1.45

0.06

1.40

0.04

1.35
0

50

100

150
Re

200

250

300

50

100

150
Re

200

250

300

Figure5:CDandStVsRe(PresentWorkandcomparisonwithpublishedresults)

Figure 6:Instantaneousvorticitycontour(a)Re=75(b)Re=175

Figure7:InstantaneousStreamFunctioncontour(a)Re=75(b)Re=175
6.References
1. Okajima,A.,Strouhalnumbersofrectangularcylinders,JournalFluidMechanicsvol
(123),1982,pp379398.
2. Davis, R. W. and Moore, E. F., A numerical study of vortex shedding from
rectangles,JournalFluidMechanicsvol(116),1982,pp 475506.

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3. Kelkar,K.M.andPatankar,S.V.,Numericalpredictionofvortexsheddingbehinda
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