Shear flow past a square cylinder near a wall

A numerical study on the wake behind a square cylinder placed parallel to a wall has been made. The cylinder is considered to be within the boundary layer of the wall, so that the outside flow is taken to be due to uniform shear. Flow has been investigated in the laminar Reynolds number (based on the cylinder height) range. The interaction of wall boundary layer on the vortex shedding at Reynolds number up to 1400.0 has been investigated for cylinder to wall gap height 0.5 and 0.25 times the cylinder height. The gap flow between the cylinder and wall during a period of vortex shedding has been obtained. The governing unsteady Navier–Stokes equations are discretised through the finite volume method on staggered grid system. An algorithm SIMPLE has been used to compute the discretised equations iteratively. Our results show that at the gap height 0.5 times the cylinder height the vortex shedding occurs at a Strouhal number greater than for an isolated cylinder. Vortex shedding suppression occurs and wake becomes steady up to a certain value of Reynolds number at gap height 0.25 time the cylinder height. At higher Reynolds number the formation of a single row of negative vortices behind the cylinder when it is in close proximity to wall is noteworthy. Due to the shear, the drag experienced by the cylinder is found to decrease with the reduction of gap height.