Large-scale structures in dipole and quadrupole wakes of a wall-mounted finite rectangular cylinder

Large-scale quasi-periodic vortex structures shed behind a wall-mounted rectangular cylinder were reconstructed from conditional averaging of several planar particle image velocimetry measurements based on the phase of the pressure at the cylinder surface. The measurements were taken for a square cross-section cylinder with height-to-width ratio of h/d = 8 partially immersed in two nominally thin turbulent boundary layers of thickness-to-height ratios of δ/h = 0.09 and 0.32. The Reynolds number based on the diameter was 12,000. For the thinner boundary layer in the time-averaged wake, one stream wise vortex pair was present at the free end (dipole wake) while for the thicker boundary layer, another pair was also observed at the wall junction (quadrupole wake). The detailed description of the shed structures giving rise to these time-averaged vortex pairs indicates more complex connections than previously proposed arch-type structures, which implies different vortex dynamic processes in the wake. The structures obtained for the dipole and quadrupole wakes were similar at the free end but significantly different at the junction resulting in distinct imprint on the mean and turbulent fields.