Characteristics of aerodynamic forces exerted on a twisted cylinder at a low Reynolds number of 100

Laminar flow over a twisted cylinder is numerically simulated at a Reynolds number of 100. The flow past a smooth cylinder is calculated for comparison. Jung and Yoon (J. Fluid Mech., 759, 2014) showed the considerable suppression of force coefficients at the subcritical Reynolds number of 3000. The present results verify that the twisted shape of the cylinder can be used to reduce the force coefficients at a low Reynolds number containing the laminar flow. This suppression of the force coefficients is supported by a longer vortex formation length produced by the twisted cylinder. We investigated the characteristics of the local force coefficients for a twisted cylinder. The simple periodic oscillation of the time histories of total and local lift coefficients for the twisted cylinder exhibits the same pattern as that of a smooth cylinder. However, the time history of drag for the twisted cylinder reveals the presence of multi-frequency oscillations, resulting in harmonic behavior of the power spectra. This is confirmed by a time sequence of the instantaneous flow fields during the half-period of the time histories of force coefficients. The nature of the three-dimensional (3-D) twisted shape forms the 3-D vortical structures along the spanwise direction, which leads to the harmonic behavior of the drag time trace power spectra. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.