INTERFERENCE IN THE WAKE OF 2 SQUARE-SECTION CYLINDERS ARRANGED PERPENDICULAR TO EACH OTHER

The flow around the two cylinders of square cross-section arranged perpendicular to each other has been investigated in a steady, low-turbulence, uniform flow at Reynolds numbers of 2 x 10(4) and 1 x 10(4) (based on cylinder diameter and freestream velocity). Complex three-dimensional interference effects were found to exist in the wake of the cylinders, the precise nature of which is dependent upon their spacing. If the distance between the axis of each cylinder is less than three diameters, the interference effects are dominated by secondary flows associated with horseshoe vortex structures generated at the centre of the configuration, whereas at spacings beyond this critical value, the disturbance is largely confined to the wake of the downstream cylinder. The paper examines these interference effects in detail for axis spacings up to a maximum of ten diameters.