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Effect of rounded corners on the flow and noise from a cube

Conference Paper · June 2018

DOI: 10.2514/6.2018-2960

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 Effect of rounded corners on the flow and noise from a cube

Yanan Wang∗ David Thompson† Zhiwei Hu ‡

University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom.

In this work, the flow characteristics and the emitted noise at different Reynolds numbers
for a cube in free space are investigated numerically for a series of rounded corners. In the first
step, the Delayed Detached Eddy Simulation (DDES) model is employed in the Computational
Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technique to examine the flow features. Subsequently, based on the
fluctuating pressure on the solid surfaces obtained from the CFD simulation, the noise in the
far field is predicted by using the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings (FW-H) acoustic analogy.
The results show that, as the cube is increasingly rounded, the location of the flow separation
moves from the leading edges further downstream. The variations in the flow topology due to
the corner radius and the Reynolds number influence the sound radiated to the far field. It
turns out that by increasing the radius of the rounded corners, the noise from a cube is reduced,
which suggests it is a practical way to reduce the noise from cubes.

Nomenclature

L = side length of the cube

R = radius of the rounded corner
y1+ = dimensionless first-cell spacing
∆x, ∆y, ∆z = cell dimensions in x, y, and z directions
U∞ = flow speed in the free stream
Cd = time-averaged drag coefficient
Cd,r ms = root-mean-square of the drag coefficient
Cl,r ms = root-mean-square of the lift coefficient
θ = separation angle
Cf = skin friction coefficient
St = Strouhal number

I. Introduction
he flow past bluff bodies has drawn considerable attention due to its many applications in engineering. Many
T investigations on flow around cylinders with circular or square cross-sections, as well as cuboid objects, have been
conducted both experimentally and numerically [1–5]. However, in practical cases, instead of geometries with either
perfectly circular or square sections, objects with rounded corners are employed. For example, the compact knee joint
of the single-arm pantograph designed for high-speed trains is close to a rounded cube [6]. In addition, introducing
rounded corners to replace sharp ones is a widely adopted technique to reduce drag, because in this way the position of
the flow separation will be influenced [7]. Hence, to obtain detailed in-depth understanding of the underlying physics
for flow over cubes in the presence of rounded corners, the corresponding aerodynamic features together with the noise
emitted to the far field should be examined.

Experimental measurements in a wind tunnel were conducted by Okamoto and Uemura to study the surface pressure
distribution, aerodynamic forces and the turbulent wake related to a wall-mounted cube with different radii of rounded
corners at a Reynolds number (Re) of 47,400 [8]. Additional two-dimensional (2D) measurements on the corresponding
cross-sections representing cylinders were also conducted and compared with the results from the cube. It was found
that the drag drops rapidly due to the rounding of the edges and the drag reduction rate for the cylinder is higher than that
∗ Ph.D. Student, Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, Faculty of Engineering and the Environment. yw3n14@soton.ac.uk
† Professor, Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, Faculty of Engineering and the Environment. djt@isvr.soton.ac.uk
‡ Lecturer, Aerodynamics and Flight Mechanics Research Group, Faculty of Engineering and the Environment. z.hu@soton.ac.uk
for the cube. Moreover, the recirculation length in the wake of the cube decreased with an increase of the corner radius.
Flow characteristics in the near wake of a square prism with different corner treatments at Re = 2600 and 6000 were
investigated in detail by Hu et al. [9] employing Particle Imaging Velocimetry (PIV), Laser Doppler Anemometry, flow
visualization and hotwire measurements. It was found that the flow in the base region is sensitive to the rounding radii.
Miran and Sohn [7] performed numerical investigations on a 2D square cylinder using Large Eddy Simulation (LES) to
study the effect of the corner radii on the vortex shedding behaviour at a Reynolds number of 500. Aerodynamic features
including the Strouhal number of the dominant frequency due to vortex shedding, mean and root-mean-square (rms)
force coefficients, as well as the instantaneous vortex field were reported and compared with available experimental and
numerical results. More recently, Kumar et al [10] conducted PIV measurements on a transversely oscillating square
cylinder, the corners of which were rounded with different radii at a Reynolds number of 5200.

Although several investigations have been carried out to explore the influence of rounded corners on the flow around
bluff bodies, most of them consider square cylinders rather than a more compact geometry such as a cube, which
is more likely to trigger a highly three-dimensional flow [11]. Currently most of the relevant work focuses on the
aerodynamic characteristics; the corresponding acoustic field is not well studied in the literature. This work is intended
to characterize the effect of rounded corners on both the aerodynamic and the aeroacoustic fields for a cube in free
space at different Reynolds numbers, providing some insight for a better understanding of the underlying physics. The
technique used in this work is to combine Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) with Computational AeroAcoustics to
investigate the unsteady flow around a cube, as well as the noise emitted to the far field. The first step is to obtain an
accurate description of the aerodynamic characteristics in the noise-generating near-field region by solving the governing
equations of fluid motion using CFD approaches. Then the Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings (FW-H) equation is employed to
predict sound propagation to the far-field region based on the information acquired from CFD. The Delayed Detached
Eddy Simulation (DDES) method in the open source software package OpenFOAM is adopted as the turbulent model
for CFD to obtain the surface pressure acting on the cube, which is closely linked with the dipole noise source. Based on
the CFD simulations, noise in the far field is predicted using the FW-H equation within the commercial software FLUENT.

II. Numerical setup

A sketch of the computational domain together with the assigned boundary conditions in the x − y plane through the
centre of the cube is illustrated in Fig. 1, which is exactly the same as those in the x − z plane. The side length of the
cube is 75 mm, which is denoted as L, while the radius of the rounded corner is R. The origin of the coordinate system
is located at the centre of the cube and the x, y and z-axes represent the streamwise, cross-flow and spanwise directions,
respectively. The overall size of the computational domain is 26L × 13L × 13L with a corresponding maximum blockage
ratio of about 0.6%, which is below the upper limit of 3% recommended by Franke et al. [12]. As displayed in Fig. 1,
V elocit y Inlet and Pressure Outlet are adopted. In addition, the N o − slip W all condition is imposed on the cube
while the Symmetr y Plane condition is assigned to the top, bottom, left and right boundaries of the computational
domain. A second-order implicit differencing scheme is adopted for the temporal discretization. For the convection
term, a second-order Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) interpolation scheme is applied. The freestream velocities
studied in this work are U∞ = 10 m/s, 15 m/s, 20 m/s, 30 m/s and 40 m/s; the corresponding Reynolds numbers are
Re = 50, 000, 75, 000, 100, 000, 150, 000, 200, 000, respectively. Since the Mach numbers for all these studied cases
are much smaller than 0.3, the flow is assumed to be incompressible in the CFD model [13]. At each flow speed, four
different radii are taken into account for the corners of the cube, namely R/L = 0 (sharp corner), 1/12, 1/6 and 1/3.
A fully structured mesh is generated for all the cases studied in this work and the maximum dimensionless first-cell
spacing y1+ is designed to be 1.5. Moreover, the minimum aspect ratio for the first layer cells is found at the rounded
corners of the cube with ∆x/∆y = ∆z/∆y ≈ 30, while the maximum aspect ratio is smaller than 120, where ∆x, ∆y, ∆z
are the cell dimensions along the streamwise, cross-flow and spanwise directions respectively. As an example, the total
number of grids for the radii of R/L = 0, 1/12, 1/6 and 1/3 at the flow speed of 10 m/s are 795,664, 965,376, 1,336,444
and 1,692,952, respectively. The time step is set to a constant value of 1 × 10−5 s and the corresponding maximum
Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy (CFL) number is about 2.

2
 Fig. 1 Sketch of the computational domain (at z = 0)

III. Aerodynamic results

Due to the symmetry of the cube, the mean values of the lift and side-force coefficients are zero and the rms
value of the lift coefficient is the same as that for the side-force coefficient. Therefore, only the time-averaged drag
coefficients (Cd ), and rms values of drag and lift coefficients (Cd,rms and Cl,rms ) are presented. These are given for
all the investigated radii at different Reynolds numbers in Fig. 2. It can be seen from Fig. 2(a) that the mean drag
coefficient (Cd ) for the cube with R/L = 0 is almost constant for different Reynolds numbers, which is consistent with
the statement in [11] that when the Reynolds number exceeds about 30, 000, no further variations are expected for the
flow around a cube with sharp corners. However, the drag coefficient drops rapidly when the corners are rounded. In
addition, with the increase of the radius, the time-averaged drag coefficient keeps decreasing, although the reduction rate
is slowed down, especially for higher Reynolds numbers. In contrast to the mean drag coefficient, the rms values of
drag and lift coefficients for the cube with sharp corners vary considerably with the Reynolds number, even when the
Reynolds number exceeds the limit of Re = 30, 000, as can be observed from Fig. 2(b) and Fig. 2(c). The effect of
the Reynolds number on the fluctuating quantities of the flow around bluff bodies is also demonstrated in [14], where
similar conclusions were obtained. Generally, for all the studied Reynolds numbers in this work, the rms values for the
cube with sharp corners (R/L = 0) are the highest compared with the cubes with rounded corners.

For the cube with sharp corners, the incident flow always separates at the leading edges when the Reynolds number
is higher than 30, 000 [11]. However, the position of the flow separation changes once the sharp corners of the cube are
rounded. An illustration of the separation angle obtained in this work is shown in Fig. 3(a), which is the angle between
the negative direction of the x-axis and the line linking the separation position and the centre of the rounded leading
corner. The location of the flow separation can be determined by the position where the skin friction coefficient (C f )
becomes zero. A summary of the separation positions for all the cases with rounded corners is illustrated in Fig. 3(b);
the separation angle for the cube with sharp corners will always be at 45◦ . According to Fig. 3(b), at each studied speed,
with the increase of the radius of the rounded corner, the location of the flow separation moves downstream, although
the rate of change varies at different flow speeds. Moreover, with the increase of the Reynolds number from 50, 000 to
100, 000 for each radius, the flow separates further upstream, as indicated by the dropping separation angles in Fig. 3(b).
However, at higher Reynolds numbers, from 100, 000 to 200, 000, the behaviour of the flow separation becomes more
complicated for each value of R, as the separation angle keeps growing for R/L = 1/3, while that for R/L = 1/12 and
1/6 fluctuates. Especially at Re = 200, 000, the separation angles for R/L = 1/12 and 1/6 move closer to each other,
but are much smaller compared with that for the largest radius of R/L = 1/3. In addition, all these separation angles
displayed in Fig. 3(b) are below 90◦ , which means the flow separates before it reaches the rear edge of the rounded corners.

3
 1.5 0.04
R/L=0
R/L=0
R/L=1/12
0.035 R/L=1/12
R/L=1/6
R/L=1/6
R/L=1/3
R/L=1/3
0.03
Time averaged Cd

1
0.025

Cd,rms
0.02

0.015
0.5

0.01

0.005

0 0
0.5 1 1.5 2 0.5 1 1.5 2
Reynolds number ×10 5 Reynolds number ×10 5

(a) C d (b) C d, r m s

0.1
R/L=0
0.09 R/L=1/12
R/L=1/6
0.08 R/L=1/3

0.07

0.06
Cl,rms

0.05

0.04

0.03

0.02

0.01

0
0.5 1 1.5 2
Reynolds number ×10 5

(c) C l, r m s

Fig. 2 Variations of the aerodynamic coefficients with Reynolds numbers for R/L = 0, 1/12, 1/6 and 1/3

85

80
Separation position (degree)

75

70

R/L=1/12
R/L=1/6
65
R/L=1/3

60

55
50,000 75,000 100,000 150,000 200,000
Reynolds number

(a) Defination of the separation angle (b) Separation angles

Fig. 3 Separation angles for the flow at different Reynolds numbers with R/L = 1/12, 1/6 and 1/3

4
 IV. Aeroacoustic results
At low Mach numbers, the influence of quadrupole sources due to turbulent flow is much less significant than that
for dipole sources acting on the solid surfaces in the flow [15]. Since the Mach numbers studied in the current work are
less than 0.12, only dipole sources are considered. The fluctuating pressure on solid surfaces of the cubes are sampled
during the CFD process, from which the far-field noise can be predicted by employing the FW-H acoustic analogy. The
sound emitted by the cube with different rounded radii at the flow speed of 10 m/s is taken as an example to show here,
and the 1/3 octave band spectra of the predicted noise for the investigated radii are displayed in Fig. 4. It can be seen
from Fig. 4 that the rounded corners can affect the energy distribution of the sound in the frequency domain significantly
and the primary noise at this flow speed is below 1000 Hz. The spectrum for the sharp corner with R/L = 0 in Fig. 4 is
dominated by low frequencies. Once the corner is rounded with a radius of R/L = 1/12, the sound below 50 Hz is
reduced considerably; however, it exceeds that for the sharp cube in the frequency range from 50 Hz to 1000 Hz. For the
further rounded corners with R/L = 1/6, the sound below 500 Hz is inhibited, but it climbs to a peak at 630 Hz. The
noise for the largest radius of R/L = 1/3 in Fig. 4 is close to that for R/L = 1/6 for frequencies below 80 Hz, while the
sound in the frequency range from 80 Hz to 400 Hz is much less than that for R/L = 1/6; however, it rises to a peak at
500 Hz. The reason for the peaks described above for the cases of R/L = 1/6 and 1/3 in Fig. 4 is due to changes in the
flow patterns near the sides of the cube, since the separated flow near the leading edge reattaches to the sides of the cube
pushing the shear layer closer to the cube surface with the increased radius of the rounded corners.

Re=50,000; position (0 1.4 0)

35
R/L=0
30 R/L=1/12
R/L=1/6
25 R/L=1/3
SPL (dB, re 2x10 -5 Pa)

20

15

10

-5

-10
10 1 10 2 10 3
Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 4 1/3 octave band sound pressure spectrum for the receiver at (0 1.4 0) at the speed of 10 m/s

A total of 72 different receivers in a circle 1.4 m away from the centre of the cube in the x − y plane (z = 0) are
selected with a spacing of 5 degrees. To investigate the noise directivity, the Overall Sound Pressure Level (OASPL)
at each receiver is calculated by integrating the Power Spectral Density (PSD) of the radiated noise with a frequency
resolution of 1.22 Hz up to St = 10, where St = f L/U∞ is the Strouhal number. The sound directivity in the z = 0
plane for all the studied cases is illustrated in Fig. 5. The cases R1, R2, R3, R4 in Fig. 5 denote R/L = 0, 1/12, 1/6,
1/3 respectively. As can be seen from Fig. 5, the cube with the largest radius of corners, namely R4, emits the lowest
noise. In general, the highest sound level can be detected along the cross-flow direction at 90◦ for these cases, and with
the increase of the radius, the noise along the cross-flow direction can be suppressed.

5
(a) U∞ =10 m/s (b) U∞ =15 m/s

(c) U∞ =20 m/s (d) U∞ =30 m/s

(e) U∞ =40 m/s

Fig. 5 Sound directivity in the z = 0 plane

6
 To be more specific, the effect of the radius and the Reynolds number on the OASPL at 90◦ are analysed and
displayed in Fig. 6. Fig. 6(a) illustrates the changes of OASPL in the cross-flow direction with respect to radii at each
Reynolds number, while Fig. 6(b) shows the Reynolds number dependency for each investigated radius. According to
Fig. 6(a), at the Reynolds numbers of 50,000, 75,000, 100,000 and 150,000, the noise decreases with the increase of the
radius from R/L = 0 to 1/3 and the largest noise reduction between R/L = 0 and 1/3 is about 9 dB at the Reynolds
number of 50, 000. At Re = 200, 000 the sound reduces by about 6 dB first when the sharp corner is rounded with
a radius of R/L = 1/12; however, it starts to fluctuate with further increase of the radius and the reduction in noise
from the cube with sharp corners to the cuboid with R/L = 1/3 is about 9 dB. In Fig. 6(b), the noise level induced by
the cube with sharp corners grows at a rate close to 50logU∞ . However, once the rounded corners are introduced, the
flow speed dependence of the emitted noise does not so clearly follow a power law, especially at higher flow speeds.
Moreover, it is worth noting from Fig. 5 that once the cube with sharp corners (R1) is rounded with R2 = R/L = 1/12,
although the noise at 90◦ drops considerably, that along the streamwise direction at 0◦ exceeds the sound at the same
position generated from the cube with R1 = 0 at U∞ = 10 m/s, 15 m/s and 20 m/s and becomes very similar to it at
U∞ = 30 m/s and 40 m/s. However, with further increase of the radius, the noise at 0◦ reduces consistently for all these
investigated flow velocities. In summary, increasing the radius of rounded corners of a bluff body such as a cube is an
effective way to mitigate the noise, although the exact amplitude of the reduced noise is influenced by both the radius
and also the Reynolds number.

Receiver at (0 1.4 0) Receiver at (0 1.4 0)

80 70
R/L=0
Re=50,000
75 R/L=1/12
Re=75,000 65
R/L=1/6
70 Re=100,000
R/L=1/3
Re=150,000 60 50logU∞
65 Re=200,000

55
60
OASPL (dB)

OASPL (dB)

55 50

50 45

45
40
40
35
35
30
30

25 25
R/L=0 R/L=1/12 R/L=1/6 R/L=1/3 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
The Radius of the corner Flow speed (m/s)

(a) OASPL changing with the rounded radii at each Reynolds (b) OASPL changing with Reynolds number at each rounded
number radius

Fig. 6 The trend of OASPL changing with radii of rounded corners and the Reynolds numbers

V. Conclusions
In the present work, numerical simulations are conducted on a cube in free space for which the corners are rounded
with a series of radii including R/L = 0 (sharp corner), 1/12, 1/6 and 1/3. Results are presented at Reynolds numbers
of 50, 000, 75,000, 100,000, 150,000 and 200,000. Due to the rounded corners, the position of the flow separation near
the leading edges of the cube changes according to the variations of both radii and Reynolds numbers, which leads
to different flow patterns around the cube and also affects the noise radiated to the far field. Mean and rms values
of aerodynamic coefficients are examined first, which are closely linked with the dipole noise source. Subsequently,
noise spectra and the predicted sound directivity are presented. The time-averaged drag coefficient for the cube with
sharp corners tends to be Reynolds number independent for the values of Re studied in this work, while the rms values
are sensitive to the variation of Reynolds number. With the increase of the radius, the drag force acting on the cube
decreases. The noise emitted from the cube with sharp corners increases at a rate close to 50logU∞ . Current results
show that rounding the sharp corners of the cube can effectively reduce radiated noise, especially along the cross-flow
direction at low flow speeds. In addition, the rounded corners affect the frequency content of the noise spectrum
considerably, which is related with the flow behaviour.

7
 Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the University of Southampton and China Scholarship Council (CSC). The
simulations in this paper are carried out on the iridis 4 supercomputer at the University of Southampton.

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