Abstract: The current research focuses on the flow around cylinders with different cross sections (circle, semi-circle, rectangle, triangle, trapezoid, and two airfoils: NACA0040 and NACA4412), which is experimentally and numerically investigated. The primary objective of this research is to examine the impact of the geometry on the vortex shedding downstream of a smooth and stationary shape, and the aerodynamic loads are to be determined as well. The experimental investigations are carried out in an instrumented subsonic wind tunnel. The numerical computations are carried out using OpenFOAM, a finite volume method-based open-source CFD software. The governing equations are the Unsteady Averaged Navier Stokes equations, where the turbulence is modeled by the two-equation SST K- model; for this purpose, different Reynolds numbers are considered: Re = 10, 100, 200, and 1000. The obtained results show that the variation of the contact surface and the geometry has a strong effect on both the various physical parameters and the vortex detachment in the downstream flow.

Keywords: Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), Vortex detachment, Experimental aerodynamics, Drag force, Turbulence, OpenFOAM software, Reynolds number, Numerical Simulation

Pages: 151-161