Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 69 (2015) 19–26

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Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/etfs

Control of flow past a dimpled circular cylinder

Bo Zhou ⇑, Xikun Wang, Wei Guo, Wie Min Gho, Soon Keat Tan
Maritime Research Centre, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 639798, Singapore

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper, the flow past a circular cylinder with dimpled surface (the roughness coefficient k/D = 0.05,
Received 18 September 2014 k is the depth of the dimple hole, and D is the diameter of the cylinder) was investigated. The experiments
Received in revised form 30 May 2015 were conducted in an open water channel and the Reynolds number ranged from 7.43  103 to
Accepted 27 July 2015
1.798  104. Drag and lift forces on the cylinder were measured directly using a load cell. Two types of
Available online 30 July 2015
surface roughness were investigated, i.e., half dimpled and fully dimpled. The study revealed that the
cylinder covered with dimples uniformly over the total surface could produce a drag coefficient of about
Keywords:
90% of a smooth cylinder. On the other hand, the force coefficients (drag and lift) of the half dimpled
Flow control
Drag reduction
cylinder varied considerably, depending on the orientation of the dimpled surface with respect to the
Surface roughness incident flow. The flow field in the wake of the cylinder was measured using particle image velocimetry
Dimpled cylinder (PIV) technique, confirming that the dimpled surface could affect the strength of vortex shedding from
the cylinder.
Ó 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Effective control of flow separation and wake in the lee of a
cylinder and hence the reduction of drag and lift is an important
theme in many engineering applications. The mechanism of drag
reduction due to surface roughness is thought to be caused by
the transition from laminar to turbulent boundary layer. Flow over
a rough surface is known to display an early transition to turbu-
lence, which means that a rough cylinder may have a lower drag
coefficient than a smooth cylinder at a certain range of Reynolds
numbers [3]. Different types of roughness pattern have been con-
sidered by previous researchers, for example dimples and grooves
[2,3], surface trip wire [9,14], roughness strips [10], dimples [4,12],
grooves [8,7,13], helical strakes [18], screened surface [11], and
periodic blowing and suction [6], among others.
These studies brought to light the fact that hydrodynamic forces
on a cylinder could be modified through introduction of pertinent
roughness patterns. For example, Bearman and Harvey [4] demon-
strated that the dimpled surface can have a substantial effect in
reducing drag on the cylinder over Reynolds number range from
Re = 2  104 to 3  105 (where Re ¼ DU=v , in which D is the diam-
eter of the cylinder, U is the flow velocity and v is the kinematic
viscosity). The dimpled surface was made of twelve equally spaced
dimples (k/D = 0.9  102) machined around the circumference of
the cylinder.
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +65 97438252; fax: +65 67906620.
E-mail address: zhoubo@ntu.edu.sg (B. Zhou).
Butt et al. [5] investigated the flow over cylinders with hexago-
nal dimples (k/D = 1.98  102) in a subsonic wind tunnel over the
range Re = 3.14  104–2.77  105. Their results showed that the
dimpled cylinder could achieve a drag coefficient of about
0.65 times of a smooth one.
However, we are not aware of any reported study on flow past a
cylinder with this type of dimpled surface (fully or partially cov-
ered dimple patterns). In this study, the characteristics of eight dif-
ferent types of dimpled pattern were investigated. The findings of
this paper would serve to produce better understanding of the
dynamic forces (drag and lift) on the cylinder with dimpled rough
surface.
2. Experimental set-up
Comprehensive measurements were conducted in an open
channel located at the Maritime Research Centre, Nanyang
Technological University to investigate the complex non-linear
flow phenomena in the wake of the cylinders. The re-circulating
open channel was 6 m long with a rectangular cross section of
0.3 m  0.4 m (width  height). The bottom and the two side walls
of the test section were made of glass to facilitate optical access.
The streamwise turbulence intensity in the free stream was found
to be low such that it was below 2%. Particle Imaging Velocimetry
(PIV) technique was used to measure flow around the cylinder
with or without dimples. The PIV system had a double cavity
Nd:YAG laser light sheet at 532 nm wavelength (Litron model,
power  135 mJ per pulse, duration  5 ns). 1050 instantaneous

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.expthermflusci.2015.07.020
0894-1777/Ó 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
20 B. Zhou et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 69 (2015) 19–26
flow fields were obtained for each case at the frequency of 15 Hz.
More details of the open channel could be found in Wang and
Tan [17] and Zhou et al. [19].
The test circular cylinders were made of initially smooth, solid
perspex rod with a constant diameter of D = 40 mm. Dimple pat-
terns were later milled on the cylindrical surface as roughness ele-
ments. The design picture of the dimpled cylinders is shown in
Fig. 1. Model A corresponded to the cylinder with one half of its
exterior surface covered with dimples. Model B was fully covered
with dimples. The dimples were laid out in checker fashion with
two dimple densities, i.e., sparse and dense with 16 and 32 dimples
along the circumference, respectively. The diameter (d) and depth
(k) of the dimples were 4 mm (d/D = 0.1D) and 2 mm (k/D = 0.05),
respectively. The center-to-center spanwise distance between
dimples was 8 mm (0.2D). Fig. 1 shows detailed dimensions of
the dimpled cylinders. The test cylinders in the experiment are
shown in Fig. 2.
The length of the cylinders was 400 mm, leading to an aspect
ratio length-to-diameter of 10. This aspect ratio was considered
large enough to ensure a 2D flow in the near wake of the cylinder
Fig. 1. Schematics of the cross-sectional and side views of the dimple cylinders (dimensions are in mm).
[16]. The coordinates x, y and z denote the streamwise, transverse
and spanwise directions, respectively. In the present test, the
free-stream velocity (Ue) was set as 0.18, 0.29, 0.37 and 0.45 m/s,
corresponding to Re = 7.43  103, 1.179  104, 1.479  104 and
1.798  104, respectively. This Re range is quite common used for
engineering applications, such as offshore or in-land structures.
The lists of test cases are shown in Table 1.
A platform was used to affix the test cylinder at its top end, as
shown in Fig. 3. A piezoelectric three-axis load cell (Kistler model)
was mounted on the platform, and was used to measure the inte-
gral lift and drag forces on the cylinder. In this way, the dynamic
drag (FD) and lift (FL) forces acting on the cylinder could be mea-
sured directly. The mean and root-mean-square (r.m.s.) values of
the drag coefficient CD (¼ F D =0:5qU 2e A, where q is fluid density
and A is the projected frontal area) and lift coefficient CL
(¼ F L =0:5qU 2e A) were deduced from the measurements, which are
the main load parameters for engineering applications. Through a
number of repeated experiments on the smooth cylinder, the
uncertainty in the mean drag coefficient was found to be within
1%.
 B. Zhou et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 69 (2015) 19–26 21

Fig. 2. Photographs of the test cylinder(s) with (a) different types of roughness elements (dimples) (b) sparse checker dimple pattern (c) dense checker dimple pattern.

Table 1
The covered test cases.

No. Sketch Test case description Remark

1 Smooth Smooth

2 Dimple full DF

3 Dense Dimple full DDF

4 Dimple Half Forward DHF

5 Dimple Half Side DHS

6 Dimple Half Backward DHB

7 Dense Dimple Half Forward DDHF

8 Dense Dimple Half Side DDHS

Fig. 3. Photograph of the experimental set-up (side view).
9 Dense Dimple Half Backward DDHB

the reported values in the subcritical regime [15]. As observed in

3. Results and discussion
3.1. Force coefficients
The time series of the instantaneous lift (C L ) and drag (C D ) coef-
ficients for the smooth and dimpled cylinders at Re = 1.798  104
are presented in Fig. 4. It is noted that in each case both C L and
C D have achieved the ‘‘steady state’’, as reflected in the signals
oscillate about a mean value (C D and C L ). For the smooth cylinder,
the mean drag coefficient, C D , is about 1.1, which agrees well with
Fig. 4, the value of C D for the dimpled cylinders is generally lower
than that of the smooth cylinder. It could be seen that the C D value
for the case of ‘‘dimple half backward’’ (DHB) case is higher than
those of ‘‘dimple half forward’’ (DHF) case. The C D value of the
DHF cylinder appeared to depict the lowest value. On the other
hand, the value of C L for each case is constant at C L  0, suggesting
good flow symmetry about the cylinder axis.
The amplitude of the lift fluctuation is significantly larger than
that of the drag, reflecting the pressure fluctuations due to the
periodic vortex shedding from the two sides of the cylinder.
Here, the Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT) method is used to analyze
the spectral characteristics of the measured C L time series. Fig. 5
22 B. Zhou et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 69 (2015) 19–26
Fig. 4. Time history of the instantaneous lift and drag coefficients for the smooth and dimpled cylinders at Re = 1.798  104.
shows the computed power spectra for the smooth, ‘‘dimple full’’
(DF), ‘‘dimple half forward’’ (DHF), and ‘‘dimple half backward’’
(DHB). It can be observed that there is always a distinct and defi-
nite peak at about Strouhal number St = 0.18 (St ¼ fD=U e , f is the
peak frequency), which corresponds to that for periodic vortex
shedding from the cylinder [15].
The peak corresponding to the vortex shedding frequency is dif-
ferent over the covered test cases. Normally the peak value of the
smooth cylinder is larger than that of the dimpled cylinders at the
same Reynolds number. For example, at Re = 1.798  104, the peak
value of the smooth cylinder is 0.00512, whereas those of the DF,
DHF and DHB cylinders are 0.00126, 0.00124 and 0.0013, respec-
tively. The lower amplitude of the spectral peak for DF, DHF and
DHB cases indicates that the strength of vortex shedding becomes
weaker due to the presence of dimpled surface.
Fig. 6 shows the variation of C D as a function of Re for the
smooth and dimpled cylinders. The C D value of the smooth cylinder
increases slightly with Re, but is in the neighbourhood of 1.1. In
comparison, for the fully dimpled cylinders (DF or DDF), the C D val-
ues (about 0.95) are significantly lower than those of the smooth
cylinder over the Re range considered. For the half dimpled cylin-
ders, on the other hand, the C D values vary with the orientation
of the dimpled surface with respect to the incident flow. When
the dimpled surface is located at the lee side of the cylinder, i.e.,
DDHB or DHB, the C D values are closer to or even higher than that
of the smooth cylinder. When the rough surface is orthogonal to
the incident flow, i.e., DDHS or DHS, the C D values are less than that
of the smooth cylinder, but higher than the fully dimpled case (DF
or DDF). In the case when the rough surface faces the incident flow,
i.e., DDHF or DHF, the C D values are significantly lower than those
of the smooth cylinder, and are close to that for the fully dimpled
cylinders (DF or DDF). For example, at Re = 1.798  104, the C D
values for the DHF cylinder are about 14% lower than that of the
smooth cylinder.
At Re = 1.179  104, the difference in C D value for DDHB and
DDHF is about 22%. The lowest value of C D is observed for the
DHF cylinder at Re = 7.43  103 with ðC D Þmin  0.9, whereas the lar-
gest value of C D is observed for the DDHB cylinder at
Re = 1.179  104 with ðC D Þmax  1.3. It could be deduced that the
effect of the orientation of the dimpled surface is significant.
This discrepancy might be explained as follows. The drag on a
smooth cylinder is dominated by the form (or pressure) compo-
nent, which contributes more than 98% of the total drag, whereas
the skin friction (or viscous) component is responsible for the
remaining 1–2%, see Achenbach [1,2]. For a rough cylinder, on
the other hand, both the form and friction drags are significant
and neither components can be neglected, see Sumer and
Fredsøe [15]. However, considering the fact that with further
increase in Re the total drag coefficient C D of the rough cylinders
is lower than that of the smooth counterpart, the form drag of
the rough cylinders must have been reduced significantly. One pos-
sibility is that the presence of the surface roughness would lead to
early transition of the separated boundary layer causing it to
achieve a turbulent state and reattach to the body. This might also
explain why the orientation of the half dimpled surface has such an
effect on the drag force. When the half dimpled surface faces the
incident flow, it will help to lead to the early transition of the sep-
arated boundary layer. When it faces backward, by contrast, it will
not help to reduce the drag force, but increase the friction force. As
a consequence, the C D value for the half dimpled cylinder attains
the minimum and maximum values when the dimpled surface is
orientated upstream and downstream, respectively.
For the same dimple design (k/D = 0.05), the numbers of dim-
ples is expected to produce significant impact on the mean drag
 B. Zhou et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 69 (2015) 19–26 23

Fig. 5. Power spectra of fluctuating lift coefficient of the cylinder at different Reynolds numbers: (a) Smooth; (b) DF; (c) DHF; and (d) DHB.

coefficient of the cylinder. However, the present experimental

results do not confirm this conjecture. For example, the C D value
of DDF is lower than that of DF, while the C D value of DDHF is
higher than that of DHF.
It can be seen from Fig. 4 that the lift force on the cylinder oscil-
lates and appears to be periodic, which is due to periodic vortex
shedding from the cylinder. The magnitude of the oscillations
can be characterized by their statistical properties such as the
root-mean-square (r.m.s.) value. Fig. 7 shows the variation of C 0L
(r.m.s. value of the lift coefficient) with Re. It can be seen clearly
that the C 0L values are affected considerably by the dimple pattern
as well as the orientation of the half dimpled surface with respect
to the incident flow.
For the higher-Re range (1.179  104 < Re < 1.758  104), C 0L of
the DDF cylinder is generally lower than those of other cylinders,
and is about 0.2 times of the smooth cylinder. For the lower-Re
range (Re = 7.43  103), C 0L of the DHF cylinder is the lowest (about Fig. 6. Variation of mean drag coefficient with Re for the smooth and dimpled
0.4 times of the smooth cylinder). cylinders.
24 B. Zhou et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 69 (2015) 19–26
Fig. 7. Variation of r.m.s. lift coefficient with Re for the smooth and dimpled
cylinders.
In terms of reduction in C 0L , the DHF design appears more
effective (within the Re range of the experiments). Figs. 6 and 7
Fig. 8. Representative snapshots of the instantaneous vector plot (superimposed with contours of spanwise vorticity) for the smooth and dimpled cylinders at
Re = 1.798  104: (a) t = 0 s; (b) t = 2/15 s; and (c) t = 4/15 s.
clearly show that the effectiveness of dimple patterns in reducing
the mean drag and r.m.s. lift coefficients (C D and C 0L ) on the
cylinder.
3.2. PIV results
PIV technique was used to measure the near-wake flow struc-
ture. Representative snapshots of the instantaneous vector plot
for the smooth cylinder and the DH cylinder at Re = 1.798  104
are shown in Fig. 8. In order to better depict the intrinsic flow
structure, contours of the spanwise vorticity are also
superimposed.
Basically, the flow behind the cylinder is characterized as
Kárman vortex street. Fig. 8 shows a sequence of three instanta-
neous flow fields (with an interval of 2/15 s between two consec-
utive snapshots), which roughly represents a vortex shedding
cycle with two shear layers alternately emanated from opposite
sides of the cylinder and rolled up into discrete vortices.
Obviously, there are appreciable differences between the two types
of cylinder in terms of the size of the shed vortices and the inter-
actions between upper and lower rows of vortices. As compared
to the smooth cylinder, the vortices shed from the DF cylinder
are less organized and the interaction between the vortices is also
 B. Zhou et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 69 (2015) 19–26
 2 of the cylinder at Re = 1.798  104 (a) smooth; (b) DF; (c) DHF; and (d) DHB.
Fig. 9. Distributions of the normalized turbulent kinetic energy k=U e
Fig. 10. Amplitude spectra of transverse velocity (v) for the smooth and dimpled
cylinders at Re = 1.798  104.
25
weaker. As a manifestation, the vortices shed from the smooth
cylinder have a significant transverse motion and periodically pen-
etrate into the wake centerline, whereas the vortices shed from the
DF cylinder move downstream largely horizontally with obviously
less interaction.
Through ensemble averaging the 1050 instantaneous velocity
fields obtained for each case, the turbulence kinetic energy behind
smooth and dimpled cylinders were obtained. Fig. 9 shows distri-
butions of the normalized turbulent kinetic energy (TKE, k=U 2 ) at
e
Re = 1.798  104. It could be seen that the TKE contours appear to
be symmetric about the wake centerline. On average, the smooth
cylinder has larger regions of TKE than the dimpled cylinders. For
the case of the smooth and DHB cylinders, the peak values of
TKE and contour plot areas are larger. The peak value of the smooth
case is 0.247, while those of the DHB, DF and DHF cases are 0.237,
0.197 and 0.198, respectively.
The area of contour line 0.2 for the smooth case is larger than
that of the DHB case. There is no contour line 0.2 for the DF and
DHF cases. For contour line 0.15, it is still a connected zone for
the DHF case, while it becomes two small zones for DF case. The
lower peak values and smaller sizes for the DF and DHF cases indi-
cate that the interactions between the upper and lower shear lay-
ers are weaker as compared to the smooth case (similar conclusion
is deduced from Fig. 8). This is also in accordance with the force
measurement results that the mean drag coefficient of the smooth
and DHB cylinders is much larger than that of the DF and DHF
cylinders.
The transverse velocity (v) at the point (x, y) = (2D, 0) on the
wake centerline is retrieved and spectral analysis of fast Fourier
transform (FFT) has been carried out to quantify the periodicity
26 B. Zhou et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 69 (2015) 19–26
and strength of vortex shedding. Fig. 10 shows the amplitude spec-
tra of v for both the smooth and dimpled (DF, DHF and DHB) cylin-
ders at Re = 1.798  104. There is an obvious peaks at about
St = 0.18 for the smooth cylinder, which is in good agreement with
the literature as well as the results in Fig. 5, implying that the
prominent peak in the lift spectra indeed corresponds to the vortex
shedding from the cylinder. The peaks of all spectra are all around
St = 0.18, indicating that the vortex shedding frequency does not
vary much with the change in surface pattern. But the peak value
of the smooth cylinder is much higher than the dimpled cylinders.
The peak value of the smooth case is 0.144, while those of the DHB,
DF and DHF cases are 0.102, 0.064 and 0.065, respectively. These
results agree well with the TKE results. The results of the DF and
DHF cases shows that dimpled surfaces could reduce the strength
of vortex shedding from the cylinders.
4. Conclusions
This paper presents the findings of an experimental study on
the drag and lift forces and flow characteristics of a circular cylin-
der with smooth and dimpled surfaces. The results show that the
effectiveness of the dimpled surface on the cylinder in reducing
the mean drag and r.m.s. lift coefficients (C D and C 0L ). For the half
dimpled cylinder, the orientation of the rough surface with respect
to the incident flow is significant. The C D value is the lowest when
the half dimpled surface is oriented toward the incident flow and is
the highest when it is at the lee side of the cylinder. PIV results
confirms that the dimpled surfaces could reduce the strength of
vortex shedding from the cylinder, as evidenced by the size of
the shed vortices and their interactions, velocity spectra, and dis-
tributions of the turbulent kinetic energy in the wake of the
cylinder.
Acknowledgment
The funding support from the Singapore National Research
Foundation (NRF) through the Competitive Research Programme
(CRP, NRF-CRP5-2009-01) on this project is gratefully
acknowledged. The authors also wish to thank the anonymous
reviewers for their valuable suggestions and comments to improve
the quality of the paper.
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