Control of vortex shedding and drag reduction through dual splitter plates attached to a square cylinder

In this paper we have made a numerical study on the control of vortex shedding and drag reduction of a cylinder by attaching thin splitter plates. The wake structure of the cylinder of square cross-section with attached splitter plates is analyzed for a range of Reynolds number, based on the incident stream and height of the cylinder, in the laminar range. The Navier-Stokes equations governing the flow are solved by the control volume method over a staggered grid arrangement. We have used the semi-implicit method for pressure-linked equation (SIMPLE) algorithm for computation. Our results show that the presence of a splitter plate upstream of the cylinder reduces the drag, but it has a small impact on the vortex shedding frequency when the plate length is beyond 1.5 time the height of the cylinder. The presence of a downstream splitter plate dampens the vortex shedding frequency. The entrainment of fluid into the inner side of the separated shear layers is obstructed by the downstream splitter plate. Our results suggest that by attaching in-line splitter plates both upstream and downstream of the cylinder, the vortex shedding can be suppressed, as well as a reduction in drag be obtained. We made a parametric study to determine the optimal length of these splitter plates so as to achieve low drag and low vortex shedding frequency. © 2015, Harbin Engineering University and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.