Title: Flow control around a square cylinder using a flexible plate

Authors: Xiangdong Deng

Addresses: Anhua County Water Resources Bureau, No. 33, Wangjiang Road Anhua County, Hunan Province 413500, China

Abstract: This paper investigates the flow control mechanism of the flexible plate installed at the trailing edge of a square cylinder using the immersed boundary finite element-finite difference (IFED) method. The finite element method and finite difference method are used to simulate the flexible plate and the background flow field, respectively. A Lagrangian-Eulerian coupling operator is employed to solve the flexible plate mesh nodes and the background flow field mesh jointly. Parameter analysis and mechanism research are conducted for the flexible plate with different elastic moduli, with the Reynolds number set to Re = 200. Simulation results show that the application of a rigid plate structure can effectively reduce the mean drag but increases lift fluctuations. The flexible plate structure addresses the issue of increased lift fluctuations caused by the rigid plate structure and is an ideal passive flow control method. Its control mechanism involves obstructing the contact of shear layers on both sides, enlarging the spacing of the wake vortex street, thereby reducing the pressure difference between the upper and lower sides and the front and rear sides of the square cylinder structure.

Keywords: flow control; immersed boundary method; IBM; fluid-structure interaction.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2025.147798

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2025 Vol.25 No.4, pp.227 - 241

Received: 02 Jul 2024
Accepted: 23 Oct 2024
Published online: 01 Aug 2025 *

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