VORTEX INTERFERENCE IN THE WAKE OF TWO TANDEM CIRCULAR CYLINDERS IN A CROSS FLOW.

The wake of two circular cylinders in tandem arrangement is investigated by flow visualization and PIV experiments in a towing water tank. The two cylinders are spaced at L/d (spacing ratio) = 2.0 to 15.0 and the cross flow Reynolds number ranges from 60 to 120. The flow is seeded with fine Rilsan particles and illuminated by a 2 mm thick laser sheet. The PIV image analysis is done by a standard cross correlation scheme with a powerful validation algorithm followed by multi-pass adaptive cross correlation iterations. The main objective of the study is to investigate the characteristics of the downstream cylinder wake changing considerably with the spacing ratio of the two cylinders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]