Numerical Modeling of Interaction of Turbulent Flow with a Buried Circular Cylinder on a Plane Surface

Turbulent flow characteristics around a partially buried horizontal circular cylinder are investigated numerically for the burial ratio of B/D=0.50 (B is burial depth, D is the diameter of the cylinder). The governing equations are numerically solved using ANSYS-Fluent for the flows having the same conditions with the experiments related to measurements of velocity field by Particle Image Velocimetry for Reynolds numbers based on the cylinder diameter, in the ranges of 1000 <= Re-D <= 7000. Standard k-epsilon, Renormalization-group k-epsilon, Realizable k-epsilon, Modified k-omega, Shear Stress Transport k-omega and Reynolds Stress turbulence models are employed. Experimental validations of the numerical results show that Shear Stress Transport k-omega model provides better predictions for the kinematic properties of the turbulent flow than the other turbulence models used herein. Force coefficients also predicted numerically at Reynolds numbers in the ranges of 1000 <= Re-D <= 7000 for the burial ratio, B/D=0, 0.25 and 0.5.