CFD Analysis of 2D Unsteady Flow Around A Square Cylinder: Review Article ISSN 0976 4259

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF APPLIED ENGINEERING RESEARCH, DINDIGUL
Volume 1, No 3, 2010
© Copyright 2010 All rights reserved Integrated Publishing Association
REVIEW ARTICLE ISSN 09764259
CFD analysis of 2D unsteady flow around a square cylinder

Gera.B, Pavan K. Sharma, Singh R.K
Reactor Safety Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai, India 400085
pa1.sharma@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Unsteady flow around bluff bodies is an area of great research for scientist for several years.
Flows around buildings, chimneys are examples where the fluid is in motion. Atmospheric
dispersion of pollutants around bluff bodies has intensified the need to understand wake
behavior. The vortex shedding frequency depends on different aspects of the flow field such
as the end conditions, blockage ratio of the flow passage. In the present work a numerical
simulation was carried out for flow past a square cylinder to see the wake behaviour. A two
dimensional unsteady flow past a square cylinder has been investigated numerically for 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
scheme was used on a nonuniform grid and for time discretisation CrankNicholson was used.
A high resolution grid has been used to avoid spurious oscillations and to keep the errors
within limits. The lift coefficient and velocity component in the wake region were monitored
for calculation of Strouhal number. The variation of Strouhal number with Reynold number
was found from the analysis.
Keywords: Vortex Shedding, CFD, Strauhal number, SIMPLE, drag coefficient
1. Introduction
Over the last 100 years, the flow around slender cylindrical bluff bodies has been the subject
of intense research, mainly owing to the engineering significance of structural design, flow
induced vibration, and acoustic emissions. In recent years, such studies have received a great
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, it is also necessary to study flow around other bluff body shapes, such as sharpedged
rectangular crosssectional cylinders. Structures that typically have rectangular or near
rectangular cross sections include architectural features on buildings, the buildings
themselves, beams, fences and occasionally stays and supports in internal and external flow
geometries. When these structures are exposed to cross flow the separation takes places from
the upper and lower portion of the body. Due to instability the phenomenon of vortex
shedding develops known as von Karman Vortex Street. When scaled with the cross stream
bluff body dimension and incoming velocity magnitude, the critical Reynold number where
the vortex shedding start is of the order of 50 for a zero angle of incidence. In the present
work analysis was limited to Reynold number less than 250, below Re less than 250 the flow
remains laminar and wake region is two dimensional in nature. In this range the vortex
shedding is characterised by a very well defined frequency. The vortex shedding frequency
602
and more generally the wake behavior depend on different aspects of the flow field such as
the side and end conditions, blockage ratio of the flow passage, upstream velocity and the
aspect ratio of the structures.
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 carried out for various parameters i.e. effect of
Reynolds number, effect of outlet boundary condition, effect of domain extent, effect of grid
size, effect of time step, effect of blockage ratio etc. In each of those studies, only some of
these aspects are investigated and no investigation has been found which extensively covers
all these aspects.
The distance from the computational inlet to the cylinder, Xu ranges from 4 (Kelkar and
Patankar [3]) to 125 (Stegell and Rockliff [4]). As shown by Sohankar et. al. [5], when using
a free stream condition at the inlet, the necessary distance for obtaining results independent of
this inlet location is about 10 units. When Xu was increased from 7.5 to 11.1 units, there was
a 9.3% decrease in RMS lift (the RMS lift is perhaps the best overall indicator when
comparing results in vortexshedding flows). A further increase up to Xu= 18 gave negligible
changes in the global results (less than 1%). For all references, a free stream condition U=1
and V=0 is prescribed at the inlet.
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 and drag coefficient increase, while the
base suction and stagnation pressure coefficients increase. At high Reynolds numbers this is
also observed experimentally for rectangular cylinders, circular cylinders and flat plates.
The influence of domain size, especially the location of the outflow boundary, Xd is
investigated by Sohankar et. al. [5] and Behr et. al. [10]. It is shown that if Xd is selected less
than 2.5 from the body, then the temporal periodicity of the solution is lost. The minimum
value of Xd is found to be 6.5. It was also concluded that reliable results for both types of
boundary conditions are obtainable with Xd 14.5. Sohankar et. al. [5] have investigated the
influence of Xd between 3 and 26 using the standard Neumann condition at the outlet
(hereafter referred to as the NBC) and Convective condition at the outlet (hereafter referred to
as the CBC). The results indicate that in order to obtain results independent of the outlet, Xd
must be around 26 for NBC at the outlet.
Some refinement studies are carried out by Sohankar et. al. [5] [11] and Franke et al. [12].
Some limited studies with different time steps and nearwall resolutions were performed.
They conclude that the distance of the first grid point (d) away from the body has a strong
influence on the results. For flow around square cylinders they used d=0.004. A grid
refinement study for flow around a square cylinder at Re = 500 was presented by Arnal et al.
[13]. They employ three grids (1196137, 60669 and 40645) and report some significant grid
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
603
extents of the calculation domain and blockage were thoroughly investigated by Sohankar et
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
the required size of the domain, grid distribution, time step and spatial resolution in the near
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
square cylinder. A numerical simulation approach has been adopted in the present work. The
flow configuration comprises of a square cylinder placed normal to free stream in an infinite
medium. The Reynolds number based on the cylinder height and the average velocity
considered in the numerical study is in the range 50250.
2. Governing Equations and Boundary Conditions
Flow past a square cylinder has been simulated by solving numerically the unsteady Navier
Stokes equations for an incompressible fluid in a twodimensional geometry. The equations
for continuity and momentum may be expressed in the dimensionless form as follows:
Continuity
¶ u ¶v
+ =0 (1)
¶x ¶y
Xmomentum
2 2
¶ u ¶ ¶ ¶p 1 ¶ u ¶ u
+ ( uu ) + ( vu ) = - + ( + ) (2)
¶t ¶x ¶y ¶x Re ¶x 2 ¶y 2
Ymomentum
2 2
¶ v ¶ ¶ ¶p 1 ¶ v ¶ v
+ ( uv ) + ( vv ) = - + ( + ) (3)
¶t ¶x ¶y ¶y Re ¶x 2 ¶y 2
In the above equations, the velocities are nondimensionalised with the average velocity Uin

at the inlet, all lengths with the obstacle height B and the pressure by ρUin 2 . 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 upstream of body (Xu) =8.5; extent of domain downstream of body (Xd)
=17. The boundary conditions employed for the present investigation are (Figure 1) at the
inlet, a uniform velocity has been prescribed Uin=1.0 and Vin=0.0. At outflow condition was
used which does not affect the flow in the upstream. To this end, the convective boundary
conditions have been used. The confining boundaries (top and bottom) were modeled as the
slip boundaries. Noslip (u=v=0) boundary conditions were used for the velocities on the
obstacle surface.
604
3. Numerical Details
The flow was assumed to be two dimensional and unsteady. An incompressible SIMPLE
finite volume code was used with a staggered grid arrangement. CrankNicholson scheme of
second order was used in time and a second order scheme has been used for convective and
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
iteration on the basis of the residual source criterion, which compares the sum of the absolute
residual sources over all the control volumes in the computational field, for each finite
volume equation.
Figure 1: Computational domain for the flow around a square cylinder
Figure 2: Grid used for computation
Outside a region from the body which extends 2 units upstream, downstream and sideways,
the grid distribution was made uniform with a constant cell size D. Downstream of the body,
605
D was set to 0.15. In other parts, D=0.25 was used. The distance from the cylinder surface to
the nearest grid point defines d. For this study, d = 0.004 on the upstream surface, 0.006 on
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 number of
nodes distributed over one unit length of the cylinder surface was set equal to 25 for all sides
of the body. All the computations have been carried out using the grid size of 211X137. The
grid used for the computation is shown in figure 2. One of the main difficulties encountered
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 cost of computation. Thus proper boundary conditions can reduce the size of
the computational domain and decrease the cost. In most numerical studies, especially those
which involve vortex shedding, the outlet boundary condition is a very important issue. A
suitable outflow boundary should permit the flow to exit the domain with a smooth discharge
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
seriously affect the whole flow structure, especially near the body. For finite difference and
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
present computation. In general the CBC can be written for both U and V as
¶ U ¶U
i i (4)
+ U =0
¶t c ¶x
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
statistical results. Thus in this study, as recommended by Sohankar et al. (1998), the value of
Uc was set to Uin. The discretized form of this equation was implemented as
n + 1 n D t n n
U = U - U ( U - U ) (5)
N N ( Dx ) c N N - 1
N
Where the superscript denotes the time level and the index N refers to the stream wise grid

number at the outlet.
4. Results and Discussion
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 side pressure coefficient (CPtb), base
pressure coefficient at centerline (CPbc) and stagnation pressure coefficient at centerline (CPs)
were determined from numerical calculation. The results at various Reynolds number are
606
given in Table 1. Up to Reynolds Number 50, the flow is steady. Between Reynolds numbers
50 to 55, instability occurs and vortex shedding appears and flow becomes unsteady (Figure
3). Thus our prediction is in good agreement for zero angle of incidence the critical Reynolds
number is 52 as reported by Sohankar et al. (1998).
Table 1: Effect of Reynolds number
Re St CD CDP CL’ CPf CPtb CPbc CPs

50 1.615 1.473 0.981 0.847 0.735 1.204
55 0.107 1.565 1.446 0.067 0.964 0.841 0.727 1.196
75 0.122 1.524 1.455 0.101 0.896 0.936 0.812 1.161
100 0.129 1.461 1.439 0.157 0.857 1.055 0.924 1.143
125 0.136 1.423 1.412 0.212 0.849 1.132 1.049 1.135
150 0.141 1.411 1.491 0.252 0.836 1.231 1.108 1.132
175 0.143 1.472 1.512 0.295 0.832 1.281 1.159 1.128
200 0.143 1.487 1.540 0.329 0.828 1.320 1.205 1.125
225 0.140 1.503 1.561 0.365 0.824 1.315 1.256 1.121
250 0.134 1.526 1.579 0.404 0.836 1.288 1.293 1.119
0.0050
0.06
0.04
0.0025
Lift Coefficient
Lift Coefficient
0.02
0.00
0.0000
0.02
0.0025 0.04
0.06
0.0050
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Time Time
0.3 0.6
0.2 0.4
Lift Coefficient
Lift Coefficient
0.1 0.2
0.0 0.0
0.1 0.2
0.2 0.4
0.3 0.6
0 100 200 300 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Time Time
Figure 3: Lift Coefficient with time for (a) Re=50 (b) Re=55 (c) Re=100 (d) Re=200
607
Figure 4 shows the variation of total drag coefficient with time for Re=55. Initially there is a
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
number this constant low value phase remains for a very short time. Initially there is a drop in
the drag coefficient leads to a minimum value of drag coefficient immediately followed by a
transition to fully developed phase at Re=100 (Figure 4). Figure 5 depicts the values of CD
and St Vs Re for the present work and comparison with other published results. There is a
good agreement between the results qualitatively. Quantitatively there is slight difference in
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
been shown in Figure 7.
5. Conclusion
CFD analysis was carried out for unsteady, incompressible 2D flow around a square cylinder
at zero angle of incidence for Re ranging from 50 to 250. The vortex shedding starts between
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 Re on quantities
such as Strouhal number and lift, drag, and base suction coefficients. The predicted results
show good trends with other reported results. Experimental studies on this flow for these low
Reynolds numbers are very scarce. Nevertheless, when considering the effects of different
blockages, experimental uncertainties and numerical inaccuracies, the agreement seems
satisfactory. Accurate measurements, especially at low Re are still needed. In particular, the
question of the transitional Reynolds number, i.e. the critical Re above which the flow ceases
to be laminar and cannot be made twodimensional, needs further investigation.
2.0
1.64
1.8
Drag Coefficient
1.62
Drag Coefficient
1.6
1.60
1.4
1.58
1.2
1.56
1.0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 0 100 200 300 400
Time Time
Figure 4: Drag Coefficient with time for (a) Re=55 (b) Re=100
608
Present 0.18
1.90 Sohankar et. al. 1995
Sharma & Eswaran 2004
1.85 Davis & Moore 1982 0.16
Saha et. al. 2003
0.14
1.70
0.12
St
1.65 Present
C D
1.60 0.10 Sohankar et. al. 1995

Okajima 1982
1.55 Davis & Moore 1982
1.50
Saha et. al. 2003
0.06
1.40
1.35 0.04
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Re Re
Figure 5: CD and St Vs Re (Present Work and comparison with published results)
Figure 6: Instantaneous vorticity contour (a) Re=75 (b) Re=175
Figure 7: Instantaneous Stream Function contour (a) Re=75 (b) Re=175
6. References
1. Okajima, A., Strouhal numbers of rectangular cylinders, Journal Fluid Mechanics vol
(123), 1982, pp 379398.
2. Davis, R. W.; and Moore, E. F., A numerical study of vortex shedding from
rectangles, Journal Fluid Mechanics vol (116), 1982, pp 475506.
609
3. Kelkar, K. M.; and Patankar, S. V., Numerical prediction of vortex shedding behind a
square cylinder, International Journal Numerical Methods in Fluids vol (14), 1992, p.
327.
4. Stegell, N.; and Rockliff, N., Simulation of the effects of body shape on lockin
characteristics in pulsating flow by the discrete vortex method, Proc. 3rd Int. Colloq.
on Bluff Body Aerodynamics and Applications, VA., 1996.
5. Sohankar, A.; Norberg, C.; and Davidson, L., LowReynoldsNumber Flow around a
Square Cylinder at Incidence: Study of Blockage, Onset of Vortex Shedding and
Outlet Boundary Condition, International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids
vol (26), 1998, pp 3956.
6. Stansby, P. K.; Slaouti, A., Simulation of vortex shedding including blockage by the
randomvortex and other methods, International Journal Numerical Methods in Fluids
vol (17), 1993, pp 10031013.
7. Anagnostopoulos, P.; Illiadis, G.; and Richardson, S., Numerical study of the
blockage effects on viscous flow past a circular cylinder, International Journal
Numerical Methods in Fluids vol (22), 1996, pp 10611074.
8. Behr, M.; Hastretier, D.; Mittal, S.; and Tezduyar, T. E., Incompressible Flow past a
circular cylinder: dependence of the computed flow field on the location of the lateral
boundaries, Comput. Meth. Appl. Mech. Engg., vol (123), 1995, pp 309316.
9. Turki, S.; Abbassi, H.; and Nasrallah, S.B., Effect of the blockage ratio on the flow in
a channel with a builtin square cylinder, Computational Mechanics, vol (33), 2003,
pp 22–29.
10. Behr, M.; Liou, J.; Shih, R.; and Tezduyar, T. E., Vorticity stream function
formulation of unsteady incompressible flow past a cylinder: sensitivity of the
computed flow field to the location of the outflow boundary, International Journal
Numerical Methods in Fluids vol (12), 1991, pp 323342.
11. Sohankar, A.; Davidson, L.; and Norberg, C., Numerical simulation of unsteady flow
around a square twodimensional cylinder, Proceeding Twelfth Australasian Fluid
Mechanics Conference, Sydney, 1995, pp 517520.
12. Franke, R.; Rodi, W.; and Scho Ènung, B., Numerical calculation of laminar vortex
shedding flow past cylinders, Journal Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics,
vol (35), 1990, pp 237257.
13. Arnal, M. P.; Goering, D. J.; and Humphrey, J. A. C., Vortex shedding from a bluff
body adjacent to a plane sliding wall, Journal of Fluids Engineering vol (113), 1991,
pp 384398.
610

CFD Analysis of 2D Unsteady Flow Around A Square Cylinder: Review Article ISSN 0976 4259

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

CFD Analysis of 2D Unsteady Flow Around A Square Cylinder: Review Article ISSN 0976 4259

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF APPLIED ENGINEERING RESEARCH, DINDIGUL