Numerical Simulation of Flow past Forced and Freely Vibrating Cylinder at Low Reynolds Number

This study aims at validating simulations of the forced and freely vibrating cylinders at Reynolds number of approximately 500 in order to identify the capability of the CFD code, and to establish the analysis process of the vortex-induced vibration (VIV). The direct numerical and large eddy simulations were employed to resolve the various length scales of the vortices, and the morphing technique was used to consider a motion of the circular cylinder. For the forced vibration case, both in- and anti-phase VIV processes were observed regarding the frequency ratio. Namely, when the frequency ratio approaches to unity, the synchronization/lock-in process occurs, leading to substantial increases in drag and lift coefficients. This is strongly linked with the switch in timing of the vortex formation, and this physical tendency is consistent with that of Blackburn and Henderson (J. Fluid Mech., 1999, 385, 255-286) as well as force coefficients. For the free oscillation case, the mass and damping ratio of 50.8 and 0.0024 were considered based on the study of Blackburn et al. (J. Fluid Struct., 2000, 15, 481-488) to allow the direct comparison of simulation results. The simulation results for a peak amplitude of the cylinder and a shedding mode are reasonably comparable to that of Blackburn et al. (2000). Consequently, based on aforementioned results, it can be concluded that numerical methods were successfully validated and the calculation procedure was well established for VIV analysis with reasonable results.