A FUNDAMENTAL STUDY OF THE FLOW PAST A
CIRCULAR CYLINDER USING CFD
Omar Elsayed
Mechanical Engineering Department, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt
1. Literature review
Since the fluid flow around a circular cylinder widely
exists and has many different applications, its study
has drawn great attention to many researchers.
There are many studies on the flow around an
isolated single circular cylinder. Cylindrical structures
can be found in either single or group patterns, e.g.
in the designs of cooling systems of nuclear power
plants, hydro-structures, heat exchangers, chimneys,
high buildings, power lines, cables and networks in
air and water. The kind of flow around such
FIGURE 1 . REGIME OF FLUID FLOW ACROSS A SMOOTH TUBE
Challenges arise in accurately modeling wake and
vortex formation around circular cylinders at
practical Reynolds numbers. Despite the prevalence
of 3D structures, simplification to 2D cases has
proven effective in many instances. Studies by Park
geometry will produce vortex shedding in the wake
region. Cylinders, subjected to air or water flow may
experience flow-induced forces that can lead to
failure over time. Vortex shedding occurs when the
flow reaches a critical Reynolds number. The
Reynolds number can be classified into different
regimes such as subcritical, critical, supercritical and
trans-critical. The behavior of vortex shedding is
dependent upon the Reynolds number regime [1].
et al. (1998) and Dehkordi and Jafari (2009)
demonstrate agreement with experimental values
using a laminar Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-
Stokes (URANS) method, even with 2D
simplifications. Tutar and Holdo (2001) compare
URANS and Large Eddy Simulation (LES) models,
outlining the advantages and limitations of each
method. Despite promising advancements in the
URANS method for predicting flow characteristics
around circular cylinders, challenges persist in
defining its applicability across Reynolds number
ranges and optimizing computational methodologies
[2].
For higher Re the LES solutions are shown to be
considerably more accurate than the URANS results
[3].
Moving into the impact of surface roughness on the
drag coefficient, it was found from studies that the
impact is minimal compared to the surface averaged
Nusselt number. Notably, as the degree of
roughness increases, the Nusselt number decreases
rapidly [4].
So, it could be concluded from previous studies that
turbulence models used in numerical calculations
In this paper, a comprehensive study has been done
on the fluid dynamics for the flow around a circular
cylinder in different regimes of various Re, including
fundamental topics such as wake region flow
have crucial effect in getting a right result. Moreover,
time step size has a very important effect on
numerical calculation results. Smaller time step size
gives faster and more accurate results although with
more iteration number [5]. The wake zone of a
smooth circular cylinder with identical geometry
placed horizontally perpendicular to the free-steam
flow at different Reynolds numbers were studied
numerically. In addition, the pressure coefficient (Cp)
and drag coefficient (Cd) of the cylinder were also
calculated. For numerically study ANSYS-Fluent with
K-Ɛ turbulence model were used.
The following conclusion may conclude from the
present study [6]:
1. From the numerical simulation results, the wake
zone length downstream of the cylinder at higher Re
is longer than that at lower Re ones.
2. It is observed that the drag force depends
strongly on the Reynolds numbers. The drag force
increased as the Re increased.
pattern, separation, coefficient of drag, heat
transfer and variation of Nusselt number with
Reynolds numbers.
 2.1. Problem setup:
2. Problem modeling
The solution was computed using ANSYS Fluent 19. Density based solver was used while implementing the effects
of transient flow for Re number above 150 as vortex street starts to be turbulent, however for Re blow 150 it is
suitable to neglect the transient flow effect and deal with it as a steady flow while considering the effect of gravity
to accurately visualize the flow.
The Energy equation is activated to monitor the effect of temperature and heat transfer as we define the boundary
conditions of the cylinder surface to be a wall condition made of aluminum of 573 K temperature and the inlet
fluid is air of a specified inlet velocity depending on the Re of it and of 293 K temperature.
For viscous model, the K-Ɛ realizable model of turbulence was used for Re above 150 using an
enhanced wall function activating the pressure gradient and the thermal effects to monitor the
details of changes near the cylinder and capture the separation angles for the different Re,
however , for the lower Re a laminar model was implemented, in all 4 cases implicit formulation
was used with Roe-FDS flux type and second order upwind spatial discretization.
The study Boundary conditions are inlet velocity at the inlet surface, outlet pressure of zero
gauge at the outlet surface, walls with no-slip condition for the upper and lower surrounding
surfaces and another wall with no-slip condition for the cylinder surface, not forgetting the
thermal boundaries that we mentioned before for the inlet and cylinder surfaces .
For the inlet velocity condition, we may calculate from Re relation:
Ꝭ vD
Re = µ
So, we get the velocities as in the table below:
Case Re V ( m/s )
1 0.038 2.775 x 10-6
2 50 3.651 x 10-3
3 200 0.0146
4 10000 0.7302

2.2. Mesh independence test

The optimum structure for meshes in the computational domain was determined based on the
conducted mesh independence study test. Such a test is so crucial for ensuring the adopted
mesh set is effective and can both accurately and satisfactorily converge. In order that the
dependency of element numbers on the acquired numerical solution could be observed, seven
different sets of meshes namely, 126949 elements, 58160 elements, 29181 elements, 18905
elements, 17077 elements, 15900 elements and 2097 elements were evaluated. Table 2 shows
the method used in generating the mesh as 2 faces sizing were changed with an inflation
around the cylinder surface. Table 3 illustrates the coefficient of drag of the cylinder Cd related
to different mesh sets at Re of 10000. Apparently, when the number of mesh elements was
increased to 58160, any additional added number of mesh elements would not affect the
precision of calculation outcomes significantly. Consequently, in order that the computational
resources could be consistent with the calculation precision, a mesh set comprising a number of
58160 elements was applied for the different calculations.
Furthermore, obtaining accurate results for is as equally dependent on providing a
comprehensive thermal parameter evaluation. Such a crucial measure was essential to carry
out considering the significant impact of realizing integrated convection and conduction heat
transfer and the calculated Nusselt number in regard to the quality of the results derived from
the model under study. Table 3 sheds light on the assessment which was conducted regarding
Nusselt number in regard to different mesh sets at Re of 10000 at surface cylinder temperature
of 573 K. Nusselt number values were noted to slightly decrease with the increased number of
mesh elements. Thus, it was based on the conducted thermal analysis for the model that the
mesh comprising 58160 elements was applied for the developed model as it would sufficiently
ensure the consistency and precision of the intended calculations based on trustworthy
computational resources.
Mesh 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Cd 0.10525776 0.15933727 0.15896185 0.15899883 0.15888739 0.17096748 0.17109544
Nu 416.759 360.015 359.114 358.418 357.892 355.42 355.162

Inflation Growth face face

No.layers Nodes Elements
(first layer height) rate sizing 1 sizing 2
Mesh
0.02 4 1.2 0.03 0.02 2193 2097
1
Mesh
0.0005 7 1.2 0.025 0.02 16510 15900
2
Mesh
0.0005 7 1.2 0.03 0.03 17753 17077
3
Mesh
0.0005 7 1.2 0.02 0.02 19626 18905
4
Mesh
0.0005 7 1.2 0.01 0.01 30030 29181
5
 Mesh
0.0005 7 1.2 0.006 0.005 59159 58160
6
Mesh
0.0005 2 1.2 0.005 0.002 127909 126949
7
Noting that all the inflation layers for the different meshes were chosen for y+ either equals 1
(below 5) or above 30 for precisely capturing the effects of pressure gradient near the cylinder
wall.

2.2.1. Mesh generation details and quality

The mesh chosen in this study has the following characteristics:
Face sizing1 0.006 m
Face sizing 2 0.005 m
Edge sizing 0.0005 m
Inflation Same as Edge sizing with 7 layers of 1.2 growth rate
No. elements 58160
Avg. element quality 0.95511
Avg. skewness 0.050046
Avg. aspect ratio 1.0537
Min. element quality 0.3239
Max. skewness 0.70903
Max. aspect ratio 3.4984
For the mesh generation 2 face sizing methods were used one of them is made of higher
number of elements which is around the area of greater interest and the other is made less to
reduce the calculations time.
The inflation thickness and edge sizing of the cylinder boundary layer is determined from the
calculations of y+ which was made equal to 1 in the chosen mesh with a certain number of
layers with 1.2 growth rate till the last layer reaches y+ = 4 to assure precise CFD calculations as
y+ blow 5 or above 30 is recommended for capturing the effect of wall boundary layer and with
keeping that into consideration , a y+ above 30 is used for both faces sizing.
The most important factors in considering mesh quality are aspect ration which should not go
above 20 and skewness which its average value should be maintained below 0.33.

3. Results of numerical model

The outcomes of the flow past a circular cylinder have been derived based on the previously
mentioned problem setup. It was utilized for identifying variation of flow pattern in the wake
region past the cylinder with flow Reynolds number, estimation of boundary layer separation
angle, fluid force acting on the cylinder and coefficients of drag and variation of Nusselt number
with Reynolds numbers.
For the flow pattern in the wake region, velocity contours and streamlines were used to fully
visualize the flow for each Reynolds number after about 12.5 seconds.

For fluid force and coefficient of drag, report parameters and plots were used to visualize the
variation of these physics components along the whole simulation time and the output values
were obtained as show in table 2 .
Case Cd Fd
1 327.02928 1.54522 x 10-9 N
2 0.61437 5.02322 x 10-6 N
3 0.34389 4.49385 x 10-5 N
4 0.17096748 0.0557535 N

For the estimation of separation angle, flow separates under an adverse pressure gradient and
at the point of separation, the wall shear stress is zero. The wall shear stress is plotted on the
wall (cylinder) with the position angle at which the flow is passing over the cylinder. For
demonstration, the estimation of the wall shear stress for the Reynolds number of 10000 is
shown. Firstly, the wall shear stress on the cylinder is plotted. The point of zero wall shear
stress is eyeballed and this position is noted for each case of Reynolds number.

For demonstration, the fourth case of Re = 10000 the separation angle is nearly equal to 97
degree measured from the stagnation point of the cylinder which firstly faces the flow and
where the velocity is equal to zero as shown in figure 2
For the first case of Re = 0.038 there is no occurrence of separation as shown in figure 2
For the second case of Re = 50 the separation angle is nearly equal to 127 degree as shown in
figure 2
For the third case of Re = 200 the separation angle is nearly equal to 116 degree as shown in
figure 2
The Nusselt number is used to describe the ratio of the thermal energy convected to the fluid to
the thermal energy conducted within the fluid. It provides a measure of the convection heat
transfer occurring at the surface. The Nusselt number for this case is defined as:

hD
Nu =
k
In terms of evaluating the relative importance of convective and conductive heat transfer, the
Nusselt number plays a crucial role. A Nusselt number of Nu=1 for a fluid layer represents heat
transfer across the layer by pure conduction. The larger the Nusselt number, the more effective
the convection. A larger Nusselt number corresponds to more effective convection, with
turbulent flow typically in the 100–1000 range. Therefore, the Nusselt number represents the
enhancement of heat transfer through a fluid layer as a result of convection relative to
conduction across the same fluid layer. This makes it a valuable tool in the evaluation of the
relative importance of both convective and conductive heat transfer.
The variation of Nusselt number with Reynolds number was obtained from the solution in table
3 . where it is obvious that with the increase of Re Nu also increases which reflects the up going
effect of convection compared to heat transferred by conduction.

Case Nu
1 9.01414
2 22.0937
3 66.2198
4 355.42

4. Validation of the model

The validation of solution setup and results have both been ascertained based on the
conformity between numerical study outcomes and their peers derived based on experimental
test trial procedures. Specifically, validity was further ensured based on the good agreement
observed regarding the outcomes derived from the comparisons held computationally and
experimentally regarding the values of coefficient of drag (Cd)with the different values of
Reynolds number. According to Zdravkovich’s experimental data the following graph which was
obtained by his work describes the variation of coefficient of drag noted by C Df with various Re :
As shown in figure 3, the values obtained from the numerical solution are in the same range of
the values of the experimental data. Validation can be done by visualizing the flow patterns of
the different Reynolds numbers. The experiments done by Taneda [10] visualize the flow
patterns as streamlines as shown in the photos below:
 5. References
1. Effect of Cylinder Gap Ratio on The Wake of a Circular Cylinder Enclosed by Various Perforated Shrouds
2. Unsteady RANS computations of flow around a circular cylinder for a wide range of Reynolds numbers
3. Numerical simulation of the flow around a circular cylinder at high Reynolds numbers
4. A numerical study of the impact of surface roughness on heat and fluid flow past a cylindrical particle
5. Effects of Turbulence Model and Numerical Time Steps on Von Karman Flow Behavior and Drag Accuracy
of Circular Cylinder
6. Numerical Investigation of 2D Turbulent Flow past a Circular Cylinder at Lower Subcritical Reynolds
Number
7. Numerical Simulation of Flow Around Two Side-by-Side Circular Cylinders at High Reynolds Number
8. A numerical study of steady viscous flow past a circular cylinder By BENGT FORNBERG
9. Zdravkovich, M.M., 1990. Conceptual overview of laminar and turbulent flows past smooth and rough
circular-cylinders. J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 33, 53–62.
10. Taneda, S., 1956. Experimental investigation of the wakes behind cylinders and plates at low Reynolds
numbers. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 11, 302–307

A FUNDAMENTAL STUDY OF THE FLOW PAST A

CIRCULAR CYLINDER USING CFD