Dynamics in the turbulent wake of a curved circular cylinder

Understanding the physics of turbulent wakes is an essential, yet complex task in the study of turbulent flows. In the present paper we investigate the flow past a curved body of circular cross-section. The inflow velocity is aligned with the curvature of the cylinder and directed towards its convex face. We conduct direct numerical simulations at a Reynolds number of 3900 in order to obtain a fully turbulent wake. The instantaneous vortical structures reveal that the primary vortices are roughly aligned with the curved axis. Despite the presence of isolated splitting events in the frequency of the vortex shedding, there is one single shedding frequency that dominates this process. Velocity time-traces confirm that the shear layers exhibit intermittency, which is manifested as large amplitude fluctuations. The intensity of these instabilities is increased by the secondary flow along the recirculation region, thereby influencing the dynamics of the near wake. Several spots of zero mean velocity reside next to the baseline within the recirculation region, displacing the back-flow region further downstream. It is suggested that this displacement is induced by the secondary flow, in combination with the symmetry boundary condition imposed at the top plane.