Numerical comprehensive evaluation of the flow control effect on a circular cylinder with a control rod

Abstract The drag reduction of the single circular cylinder is achieved by changing the position of an additional control rod in the present work. In order to look for where to place the control rod will help the drag force exerted on the main cylinder surface as little as possible, the additional control rod is arranged at various positions in the downstream region, the upstream region, and the middle region of the single circular cylinder, respectively. The numerical results show that the maximum drag reduction rate of the single circular cylinder can be up to 21.68%. While the additional control rod is located at some specific positions in the flow field, the drag of the single circular cylinder will increase. However, if two bluff bodies (the main circular cylinder and the control rod) are considered as a whole system, due to the extra drag contribution of the control rod, the maximum drag reduction effect of the system is 8.65%. Additionally, the lift exerted on the main cylinder and the control rod has changed a lot due to the interaction between two bluff bodies. Furthermore, the Dynamic Mode Decomposition analysis method is employed to probe the mechanism of drag variation employing the dominant flow modes.