The effect of nonharmonic perturbations on vortex dynamics in bluff-body wakes

E. Konstantinidis* and D. Bouris

Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Western Macedonia, Kozani 50100, Greece

SUMMARY
Numerical simulations of two-dimensional flow about a circular cylinder were carried out in order to
study the effect of nonharmonic perturbations of the inflow velocity on the vortex dynamics in the wake
and the fluid forcing on the cylinder for Reynolds numbers in the laminar regime. Two different
nonharmonic waveforms are examined and the results are compared to the harmonic one. An intriguing
result is that the dynamic response of the wake (i.e. whether phase-locked or not) can be modified for the
different waveforms if some reference velocity (e.g. the minimum/maximum velocity or their mean
value) is employed as the basis for the comparisons. However, if the true time-averaged flow velocity is
taken into account, then the limits of the lock-on regime fall together on the frequency-amplitude plane.
The dimensionless coefficient of energy transfer from the fluid to a corresponding oscillating cylinder
inline with the flow direction is negative in all cases examined but its magnitude depends on the
perturbation waveform.
The scope of the present study is to improve the understanding of the mechanisms of vortex formation in the
wake of oscillating bluff bodies and the associated energy transfer between the body and the fluid. A practical and
useful approach to achieve this objective is to consider a fixed body, i.e. a circular cylinder, exposed to timedependent flows since only the relative motion of the body through the fluid matters. Using this approach, it has been
made possible to explain the lack of self-excitation of vortex-induced inline vibrations when the shedding frequency
coincides with the natural frequency of an elastically mounted cylinder (Konstantinidis et al., 2005). The advantage
of this approach is that it allows one to concentrate solely on the vortex dynamics in the wake. An important
parameter that has not received much attention is the effect of the rate of change of the relative velocity between the
fluid and the body. Most of the previous work dealt with harmonic waveforms even though an infinite number of
nonharmonic waveforms are attainable in practice due to amplitude and frequency modulations in the relative motion
and/or the fluid forcing.
A recently published work has illustrated that nonharmonic perturbations of the inflow velocity can generate
different patterns of phase-locked vortex formation in the wake of a circular cylinder, involving combinations of
single and/or pairs of vortices, compared to pure harmonic perturbations for the same forcing period and peak-topeak amplitude of the perturbations (Konstantinidis and Bouris, 2009). This previous numerical work has examined
the effect of varying the perturbation waveforms for a given combination of the perturbation frequency and
amplitude. An illustrative example of the different patterns of vortex formation is shown in figure 1.
In this work, we extent the numerical simulations to cover a range of perturbation frequencies and amplitudes
encompassing the vortex shedding lock-on envelope for two specified waveforms. The numerical solution is based
on the discretization of the governing equations on an orthogonal curvilinear mesh using the finite-volume method.
At the inflow boundary of the solution domain, prescribed velocity perturbations are superimposed on a non-zero
mean in order to act as an external excitation source. Two complementary waveforms of the time-dependent inflow
velocity U(t) were generated by

+ 1 + sin 2 ( t ) n

U (t ) =
n
2
1 + cos ( t )

(1)

where is the cyclic frequency of the perturbations, is a parameter related to the amplitude of the velocity
perturbations, sets the mean velocity and the index n determines the waveform. For n = 1 the perturbation
waveform is a pure harmonic, a case which is employed as the basis for comparisons to the nonharmonic
perturbations. For the latter case, the index was set at n = 1 and two different waveforms were employed using the
two formulas in (1).
*

E-mail for correspondence: ekonstantinidis@uowm.gr

FIGURE 1. Patterns of vortex formation in the cylinder wake induced by different nonhanmonic
waveforms for the same amplitude and frequency of perturbations at Re0 = 180; (a) n = 1, (b) n = 1/5, (c)
n = -1. See equation (1) for the definition of the nonharmonic waveforms.
In this work, we examine the effects of varying the frequency and amplitude of the velocity perturbations. This
was done by varying at constant until the lower and upper limit of the vortex shedding lock-on range was
reached, then repeating the procedure at different amplitudes. The parameter was adjusted so that the maximum
inflow velocity was the same in every case considered. This maximum value of the inflow velocity corresponded to
an instantaneous Reynolds number of 180 in order to limit the simulations to the regime where the wake is expected
to remain laminar and two-dimensional in the steady flow (Williamson, 1996). It is useful to define a reference
velocity U 0 = 12 (U max + U min ) and amplitude U = 12 (U max U min ) based on the maximum and minimum velocity in
the waveform. Figure 2 shows the perturbation waveforms employed in the present simulations. The two
nonharmonic waveforms will be denoted -type and m-type because of their shape. Two important points should be
noted: (a) the time-averaged mean velocity is not equal to U0 for the nonharmonic waveforms, (b) the velocity
waveform repeats itself twice in each cycle so that the actual excitation frequency is twice the nominal frequency in
eq. (1). The energy contained in the harmonic part of the nonharmonic waveforms is 93.5% of the total energy;
hence, the deviations from a sinusoidal waveform are quite moderate.
1

U(t) U0
0
U

-1
0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

t/T
FIGURE 2. Waveforms of the forcing drivers employed in the present simulations; solid line: harmonic,
dashed line: -type nonharmonic, dotted line: m-type nonharmonic.

Figure 3 shows a map of the limits of the vortex shedding lock-on regime in the frequencyamplitude plane for
different perturbation waveforms. Within this regime the vortex formation is phase-locked with the imposed velocity
perturbations and the shedding frequency is equal to the nominal excitation frequency. In this plot, the excitation
frequency fe is normalized with the frequency of vortex from a fixed cylinder f0 corresponding to Re0 = U 0 D /
which was computed from the Strouhal-Reynolds number relationship given by Williamson and Brown (2001). The
perturbation amplitude is normalized with the reference velocity. It can be observed that the different waveforms
have a considerable effect on the lock-on map, particularly at the higher amplitudes. The -type perturbations cause
a shifting of the limits towards lower frequency ratios compared to harmonic perturbations whereas the m-type
perturbations have the opposite effect. Therefore, it is possible that for a given combination of the perturbation
frequency and amplitude the wake response can be phase-locked or not depending on the perturbation waveform. For
example, if f e / f 0 = 0.56 and U / U 0 = 0.4 vortex lock-on occurs for the -type waveform but the wake is not
phase-locked for the other waveforms. The effect of different perturbation waveforms becomes more pronounced
with increasing perturbation amplitude.
The above intriguing result can be resolved if we modify the independent variables to take into account the fact
that the true time-averaged flow velocity in not equal to U0 and, hence, both the perturbation frequency and
amplitude ratios need be corrected. Let U 0* be the true time-averaged flow velocity and f 0* the expected shedding
frequency at the true mean velocity. In the modified lock-on map, shown in figure 4, the synchronization envelopes
for different nonharmonic waveforms collapse on top of that for harmonic perturbations. However, it should be
pointed out that the Reynolds number based on the true mean flow velocity is not the same at constant amplitude for
different waveforms. Hence, there is competition between two different effects, one due to the perturbation
waveform and the other due to the Reynolds number. It is impossible to separate these two effects.
The patterns of vortex formation were also modified by different perturbation waveforms. As a consequence,
other characteristics of the cylinder wake, such as the mean drag force coefficient, exhibited considerable
modifications for different waveforms (results not shown here for economy of space). The dimensionless coefficient
of energy transfer CE between the fluid and the cylinder for the corresponding problem where the incident flow is
steady and the cylinder is oscillating inline with the flow,
CE =

(U
T

*
0

U (t ) ) CD (t )d ( t T )

(2)

where CD(t) is the time-dependent drag force coefficient and the integration is carried out over a cycle of oscillation
(the period of the flow perturbations here) was also computed from the data. The results indicate that the energy
transfer is always (i.e. for all combinations of the frequency and amplitude of the perturbations and all different
waveforms examined) negative which implies the lack of excitation of vortex-induced inline vibrations of elasticallymounted cylinders at low Reynolds numbers. However, the CE magnitude is quite sensitive to the type of the
perturbation waveform. Some work in progress, indicates that this dependence cannot be attributed to the implied
difference in the mean flow velocity (Reynolds number effect) solely.
As a conclusion, different nonharmonic perturbation waveforms have some effect on the vortex dynamics in
the wake and the forcing on the cylinder which becomes more pronounced with increasing perturbation amplitude.
For the perturbation waveforms employed in the present study, these effects can be attributed, partially at least, to the
implied change in the true mean velocity, i.e. to the effect of Reynolds number.

REFERENCES
Konstantinidis, E., Balabani, S. and Yianneskis, M. (2005) The timing of vortex shedding in a cylinder wake
imposed by periodic inflow perturbations. Journal of Fluid Mechanics 543: 44-55.
Konstantinids, E., Balabani, S. and Yianneskis, M. (2007) Bimodal vortex shedding in a perturbed cylinder wake.
Physics of Fluids 19: 011701, 1-4.
Konstantinidis, E. and Bouris, D. (2009) Effect of nonharmonic forcing on bluff-body vortex dynamics. Physical
Review E 79(4): 045303.
Williamson, C. H. K. (1996). Vortex dynamics in the cylinder wake. Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics 28: 477539.
Williamson, C. H. K. and Brown, G. L. (1998) A series in 1 Re to represent the Strouhal-Reynolds number
relationship of the cylinder wake. Journal of Fluids and Structures 12: 1073-1085.

0.5

0.4

0.3

U0
0.2

0.1

0.0
0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1.0

1.1

1.2

1.3

1.4

fe / f0

FIGURE 3. Map of the lock-on limits for different perturbation waveforms. Grey shading corresponds to
the harmonic waveform, \\\\ -type , //// m-type.

0.4

0.3

U
*

U0

0.2

0.1

0.0
0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1.0

fe / f0

1.1

1.2

1.3

1.4

FIGURE 4. Modified map of the lock-on limits for different perturbation waveforms. Grey shading
corresponds to the harmonic waveform, \\\\ -type , //// m-type.