Aerodynamic drag improvements on a circular cylinder using passive Venturi actuators

Scale-adaptive simulations (SAS) of three-dimensional flow around a circular cylinder fitted with a passive version of a novel flow control method (passive Venturi actuator, PVA) are performed at a diameter-based Reynolds number of Re = 28 000. The PVA consists of one or more narrow slits located at the top and/or bottom sides of the cylinder that connected to the throat of the axial Venturi slit in this cylinder. The main purpose of the study is to investigate the influence of divergence angle and narrow slit location relative to the axial Venturi slit on the aerodynamic performance of the cylinder. To this end, four models were designed with various PVAs. Additional models, a plain cylinder (unmodified model) and a cylinder fitted with an axial Venturi slit (model without a narrow slit), were also used for quantitative comparison. SAS predicts that an additional 5% reduction in the time-averaged drag coefficient, ⟨ C D ⟩ , was observed when two narrow slits located on the surface at an angle of ±80° from the front stagnation line were fitted to the cylinder with an axial Venturi slit. Reducing the divergence angle of the PVA leads to improvements in ⟨ C D ⟩ and root mean square of fluctuating force coefficients, C D − rms and C L − rms . It is found that a cylinder with a PVA that has two narrow slits and a divergence angle of 6° can produce a 28.6% reduction in ⟨ C D ⟩ , a 58.5% reduction in C D − rms , and an 81.2% reduction in C L − rms , when compared to the plain cylinder.