3D Simulation and Visualization of Unsteady Wake Flow behind a Cylinder

In this paper we focus on 3D simulation of unsteady wake flow behind a circular cylinder. We show that in addition to accurate formulations and sufficiently-refined meshes, efficient computing methods are essential components of an effective simulation strategy. We use the Multi-Domain Method (MDM) we developed recently in computation of two cases. At Reynolds number 300, we demonstrate how the MDM enables us to use highly-refined meshes to capture wake patterns which we otherwise cannot fully represent. At Reynolds number 140, we show that with the MDM we can extend our computations sufficiently downstream, and with sufficient accuracy, to successfully capture the second phase of the Karman vortex street, which has been observed in laboratory experiments, and which has double the spacing between the vortices compared to the first phase.