Investigation of passive flow control on the bluff body with moving-belt experiment

The passive control methods such as horizontal and vertical fences on the lower surface of the bluff body were applied to suppress the vortex shedding and enhance the aerodynamic stability of flow. For investigating the effects of the passive control methods, wind tunnel experiments on the unsteady flow field around a bluff body near a moving ground were performed. The boundary layer and velocity profiles were measured by the Hot Wire Anemometer (HWA) system and the vortex shedding patterns and flow structures in a wake region were visualized via the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) system. Also, it is a measuring on moving ground condition that the experimental values of the critical gap distances, Strouhal numbers and aerodynamic force FFT analyses. Through the experiments, we found that the momentum supply due to moving ground caused the vortex shedding at the lower critical gap distance rather than that of fixed ground. The horizontal and vertical fences increase the critical gap distance and it can suppress the vortex shedding. Consequently, the stability characteristics of the bluff body near a moving ground could be effectively enhanced by the simple passive control such as the vertical fences.