Search

The transition from an axisymmetric stationary flow to three-dimensional time-dependent flows is carefully studied in a vertical cylinder partially heated from the side, with the aspect ratio A = 2 and Prandtl number Pr = 0.021. The flow develops from the steady toroidal pattern beyond the first instability threshold, breaks the axisymmetric state at a Rayleigh number near 2000, and transits to standing or travelling azimuthal waves. A new result is observed that a slightly unstable flow pattern of standing waves exists and will transit to stable travelling waves after a long time evolution. The onset of oscillations is associated with a supercritical Hopf bifurcation in a system with O(2) symmetry.

A new high resolution approach based on spectral element method is proposed to analyse the complex global stability for the non-parallel flow passing a rotating and translating circular cylinder. The studies presented here predict the variation of Strouhal number St as the spin parameter α increases from 0.0 to 1.4, for the Reynolds number Re = 60. The direct numerical simulation shows a small increase of vortex shedding frequency at α

Heating effects of air flows past a two-dimensional circular cylinder at low Reynolds numbers and low Mach numbers are investigated by numerical simulation. The cylinder wall is heated partially rather than heated on the whole surface as with previous researches. The heating effects are completely different for various heating locations on the cylinder surface. Heating either windward or leeward side stabilizes the flow and reduces or completely suppresses vortex shedding from the cylinder at supercritical Reynolds numbers, which is consistent with previous results of heating on the whole surface of the cylinder. However, as the lateral sides of the cylinder (perpendicular to the stream-wise direction) are heated, an adverse effect is found for the first time in that the flow is destabilized and vortex shedding can be excited at subcritical Reynolds numbers. As the lateral sides of the cylinder are cooled, the flow is stabilized.