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Int. J. Turbo Jet-Engines, Vol. 28 (2011), pp. 329–333 Copyright © 2011 De Gruyter. DOI 10.1515/TJJ.2011.067

Pressure Hill and Zone of Influence over Flat-Faced Bluff Bodies

Yasumasa Watanabe,1; Kojiro Suzuki2 and 1 Introduction

Ethirajan Rathakrishnan3

1 Generation and manipulation of vortex plays an important

Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, The Uni-
role in many applications requiring mixing. To achieve the
versity of Tokyo, Japan
2
desired level of mixing, generation of the appropriate size
Department of Advanced Energy, The University of of the mixing promoting small-scale vortices is the primary
Tokyo, Japan requirement. It is well known that, starting from Kármán a
3
Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute large number of researchers are investigating the problem of
of Technology Kanpur, India vortex shedding behind bluff bodies. However, till recently,
there was no precise method identified for manipulating the
Abstract. An experimental visualization has been carried size of vortices shed by a body. Khalid and Rathakrish-
out to study the dependence of the pressure hill height and nan [1] investigated the effects of front body on drag and
the influence zone expanse for flow past rectangular blocks flow field of three-dimensional non-circular cylinders. They
of flat square face and varying length, over a Reynolds num- found that reduction of pressure hill at the nose is the main
ber range from 1364 to 4931. It is found that, the pressure cause for drag reduction. But this inference was based only
hill length and the influence zone expanse decrease with the on the pressure measurement.
length to width ratio of the block, up to about L=W D 1, Rathakrishnan [2] studied the Effect of splitter plate on
for Reynolds number up to 1586. For higher Reynolds num- bluff body drag. In this work also, the pressure hill was
bers, both H=W and Z=W increase with the model length, identified as the main cause for the high drag of bluff body,
till L=W D 1. For L=W more than 1, both H=W and based on the force and pressure measurements. In this work
Z=W gradually become independent of L=W . The ratio no attempt was made to bring out the dependence of pres-
of Z=H is influenced only marginally by L=W up to 1, sure hill on the parameters influencing it. Takama et al. [3]
and for greater values of L=W , Z=H is almost a constant studied flow past a flat plate and arc-plate of identical pro-
at all Reynolds numbers of the present study. jected area, kept normal to the flow, and found that, modi-
fication of the geometry can lead to modified size and even
Keywords. Bluff body, pressure hill, influence zone, shape of the vortices shed by them. However, this work was
Reynolds number. with thin plates, where there is no boundary layer growth
over the plate thickness. But it can be imagined that, if the
PACS® (2010). 47. bluff body has a finite length, the combined effect of the
pressure uphill at the face and the boundary layer over the
length of the body will govern the vortex shedding from the
Nomenclature object. In other words, the pressure uphill and the boundary
layer over the body will dictate the vortex shedding process.
H D length of pressure uphill Therefore, it will be a very high value if the variation of the
LD model length pressure uphill, say the length or the height of the hill at the
Re D Reynolds number face, and the zone of influence around the shoulder of the
V D flow speed body, as a function of flow Reynolds number is understood.
This will be of great use in understanding the characteristics
W D model width
of the vortices shed by the body.
ZD extent of influence zone With this aim of understanding the functional depen-
D viscosity of water dence of the pressure uphill and the zone of influence over
D density of water the bluff bodies on Reynolds number, an experimental in-
vestigation has been carried out with water flow past rect-
* Corresponding author: Yasumasa Watanabe, Department of angular blocks. The pressure hill height and the zone of
Aeronautics and Astronautics, The University of Tokyo, Japan; influence were measured at different Reynolds numbers, in
E-mail: watanabe@daedalus.k.u-tokyo.ac.jp. the range from 1364 to 4932. Figure 1 shows the schematic
Received: October 11, 2011. Accepted: October 16, 2011. diagram of flow field around a bluff body.

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330
Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the flow field around a
rectangular block.
(a)
(b)
Figure 2. (a) Schematic diagram of the experimental set-up
(dimensions are in millimeter); (b) pictorial view of the
set-up.
2 Experimental Setup
The flow past the cube model in the present investigation
was visualized in a water channel shown in Figure 2.
The flow was conditioned using wire mesh. In the test
section, it was ensured that streak lines are parallel when
there is no model. For all the tests, the flow velocity in
the test section was measured in the presence of the model.
The schematic diagram and the dimensions of the models
studied are given in Figure 3 (a) and a photographic view of
the test models is shown in Figure 3 (b). The faces of all the
models were 25 mm by 25 mm. The length was varied from
3 mm to 50 mm, and models with lengths 3, 6, 9, 12, 25 and
50 mm were studied over Reynolds number range 1364 to
4932. Watercolor dye was used to visualize the flow.
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Y. Watanabe, K. Suzuki and E. Rathakrishnan
(a)
(b)
Figure 3. (a) Schematic diagram of the test models, (b)
pictorial view of test models.
Flow velocity in the test-section of the water flow chan-
nel was measured with floating technique. A small piece
of a lightweight material was allowed to float in the test-
section, over a specified distance, and the time to cover the
distance was recorded. From the values of the distance and
time to cover it, the flow velocity was calculated. For ev-
ery speed setting, 5 measurements were carried out and the
average is taken as the test-section speed. The Reynolds
number based on the side (25 mm) for all the velocities of
the present study is listed in Table 1.
Before every test, the flow in the test-section was visual-
ized with dye streaks. Ensuring that the streak-lines are par-
allel, the model to be tested was placed in the test-section.
The flow pattern around the model, at a specified speed, was
recoded using a video camera. Few sets of such recordings
were done for every speed. Once a set of recordings was
completed for a model, the model was replaced with the
next model and similar recordings were done. Likewise,
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Pressure Hill and Zone of Influence over Flat-Faced Bluff Bodies 331

Case Number Flow Speed, m=s Reynolds Number

1 0.05479 1364.8
2 0.06369 1586.4
3 0.06522 1624.4
4 0.07547 1879.8
5 0.08969 2233.8
6 0.10127 2522.2
7 0.12069 3006.0
(a) Rew D 1:6  103
8 0.14286 3558.1
9 0.19802 4932.1

Table 1. Reynolds number in the present study.

for a speed setting, flow field over all the 6 models were
completed. On completing the visualization for one veloc-
ity, the test-section speed was changed to the next value and
experiments were continued.
From the videos recoded, the images of the flow field,
for all the combinations of the flow and geometrical param- (b) Rew D 2:2  103
eters of the present study, were viewed on a computer screen
and the pressure hill height (H ) and influence zone size (Z)
were measured.
Some typical flow field over a model with length L D
25 mm is shown in Figure 4.

3 Results and Discussions

The visualization was recorded on a video, with a resolu-
tion of 1280  720 pixels, and with a frame rate of 120
(c) Rew D 2:5  103
frames per second. The pressure uphill and the zone of in-
fluence were measured from the video images. The mea-
sured values of height H and the zone of influence Z were
normalized by the width of the model W . Figure 5 shows
the variation of pressure hill height with the model length,
at different Reynolds numbers. For L=W from 0.1 to about
0.5, the pressure hill shows an oscillatory nature with L=W ,
for all the Reynolds numbers. But for L=W larger than 0.5,
the variation with model length is almost insignificant, for
a given Reynolds number. It is seen that, the pressure-hill
height is strongly influenced by the Reynolds number only
for L=W less than 0.5. This may be because the length (d) Rew D 4:9  103
of the model is not long enough to isolate the effective in-
Figure 4. Flow field around cube of size 25 mm.
fluence of the oscillations at the base caused by the alter-
nate vortex shedding. Further, it is evident from these re-
sults that for the Reynolds number range from about 1300
to about 5000, model L=W around 0.5 is enough to iso- the hill height jumps from 0.76 for L=W 0.12 to 1.1 for
late the base effect on the pressure-hill. Another interesting 0.24. But at Reynolds number 1364, from L=W from 0.12
aspect observed is that, for L=W up to 0.5, the hill height to 0.24, H=W decreases from 0.71 to 0.57. These trends
varies significantly with Reynolds number. The maximum clearly demonstrate the strong influence of the base flow on
height of the hill is around 1.1, at Reynolds number 3006, the hill height. Similar decrease is seen for Reynolds num-
for L=W 0.24. For this combination of flow and geometry, ber 4932. For all other Reynolds numbers the hill height

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332
Figure 5. (a) Schematic diagram of the experimental set-up
(dimensions are in millimeter); (b) pictorial view of the
set-up.
Figure 6. Variation of the influence zone expanse with
model length.
increases from L=W for 0.12 to 0.24. However, the level of
increase is a strong function of the Reynolds number. One
more aspect observed is that the effect of Reynolds number
on the pressure hill is sensitive to the model L=W . From
this discussion it is evident that the combination of the ge-
ometrical and flow parameters strongly influence the flow
filed at the face and base of the blunt body.
Another important parameter of practical importance is
the zone of influence, because the extent of this zone can be
regarded as a direct indication of the drag caused by the pos-
itive pressure field at the face of the body. To gain an insight
into this important parameter’s dependence on model length
at a specified Reynolds number, variation of Z=W with
L=W , for different Reynolds numbers, is shown in Fig-
ure 6. These results show a similar variation as H=W . For
L=W less than 0.5, Z=W is strongly influenced by L=W
at all Reynolds number. For L=W greater than 0.5, the ef-
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Y. Watanabe, K. Suzuki and E. Rathakrishnan
Figure 7. Variation of the ratio of influence zone expanse to
hill height with model length.
Figure 8. Pressure hill height variation with Reynolds num-
ber.
fect of model length on the influence zone is only marginal.
Therefore, in can be summarized that, model length more
than 0.5W is sufficient to prevent the base field effect on
the influence zone.
A cross plot of the pressure-hill and influence zone is
made in the form of Z=H variation with L=W for different
Reynolds numbers, in Figure 7. As expected, the variation
of Z=H with L=W is large for shorter models, with L=W
less than 0.5 and for L=W greater than 0.5, Z=H becomes
almost independent of the model length.
To highlight the range of Reynolds number for which
the face flow influence zone of pressure hill and zone of
influence, the cross plots of variation of H=W and Z=W
are shown in Figures 8 and 9. It is seen that for the range of
L=W in the present study, Reynolds number around 3000,
the pressure hill is strongly influenced by L=W compared
to the lower and the higher values of Reynolds number as
seen in Figure 8.
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Pressure Hill and Zone of Influence over Flat-Faced Bluff Bodies 333

3000, the variation of influence zone with Reynolds number

is less pronounced.

Figure 9. Influence zone variation with Reynolds number.
4 Conclusions
In the present study of visualization of flow field around
a square-faced blunt body varying length, with water flow
channel, the important features of pressure hill height
and the zone of influence were comfortably captured for
Reynolds number range from 1342 to 5000. The val-
ues of pressure hill height and the influence zone expanse
from visualization pictures clearly demonstrate that, the
model L=W around 0.5 is the limiting length to isolate the
base disturbance on the zone of influence and pressure hill
height.

Figure 9 shows the variation of Z=W with Reynolds [1] Khalid M and Rathakrishnan E, “Effects of front body on drag
number. It is interesting to see that unlike the pressure hill,
the effect of Reynolds number on the zone of influence is
only marginal at Reynolds number 3000 compared to lower
and higher values as seen from the results. Another inter-
esting feature observed is that, from Reynolds number 1300
to 3000, the zone of influence shows a continuous increase
of influence zone for all L=W s. Beyond Reynolds number
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[2] Rathakrishnan E, “Effect of splitter plate on bluff body drag”,
AIAA Journal , Vol. 37, No. 9 (1999), pp. 1125–1126.
[3] Takama, Y., Suzuki, K. and Rathakrishnan, E., “Visualization
and size measurement of vortex shed by flat and arc plates in
an uniform flow”, International Review of Aerospace Engi-
neering(IREASE), Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 55–60, February 2008.

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