Flow Past Two Rotating Circular Cylinders in a Side-By-Side Arrangement

Measurements were performed using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) to analyze the modification of flow by the combined effects of the rotation and the Reynolds number on the flow past two rotating circular cylinders in a side-by-side-arrangement at a range of 425 ≤ Re ≤ 1130, 0 ≤ α ≤ 4 (α is the rotational speed) at one gap spacing of T/d = 1.11 (T and d are the distance between the centers of two cylinders and the cylinder diameter, respectively). A new Immersed-Lattice Boltzmann Method (ILBM) scheme was used to study the effect of the gap spacing on the flow. The results show that the vortex shedding is suppressed as rotational speed increases. The flow reaches a steady state when the vortex shedding for both cylinders is completely suppressed at critical rotational speed. As the rotational speed further increases, the separation phenomenon in the boundary layers disappears at the attachment rotational speed. The critical rotational speed and attachment rotational speed become small as Reynolds number increases. The absolute rotational speed of cylinders should be large at same critical rotational speed and attachment rotational speed in the case of large Reynolds number. The gap spacing has an important role in changing the pattern of vortex shedding. It is very different in the mechanism of vortex shedding suppression for the flows around two rotating cylinders and single rotating cylinder.