3D flow around a rectangular cylinder: A computational study

The aim of this paper is to provide a contribution to the analysis of the 3D, high Reynolds number, turbulent, separated and reattached flow around a fixed sharp-edged rectangular cylinder with a chord-to-depth ratio equal to 5. The work is developed in the perspective of the benchmark on the aerodynamics of a rectangular cylinder (BARC), in terms of an exploratory computational study. First, the adopted flow modelling and computational approach are shortly described. Second, the obtained main aerodynamic integral parameters are compared with other results proposed in the literature. Hence, the 3D flow features around the nominally 2D cylinder are investigated by means of both proper orthogonal decomposition and coherence function of the side-surface fluctuating pressure field. Once the main 2D nature of the flow has been pointed out, some of the 2D mechanisms that are responsible for the variation of the fluctuating aerodynamic forces are scrutinised: the computational approach post-processing facilities are employed to look for significant relationships between the flow structures, the pressure field and the aerodynamic force components.