ISSN: 2641-2039 DOI: 10.33552/GJES.2021.07.

000651

Global Journal of
Engineering Sciences

Research Article Copyright © All rights are reserved by Salwa FEZAI

Analysis of the Interaction in Flow Around Three

Staggered Square Cylinders at Two Different
Triangular Arrangements
Salwa FEZAI1*, Racha NEFZI2 and Brahim BEN-BEYA2
1
Physics Department, Samtah University College, Jazan University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
2
Laboratory of Physics of Fluids, Physics Department, Faculty of Science of Tunis, University of Tunis El-Manar, 2092 El-Manar 2, Tunis, Tunisia

*Corresponding author: Salwa FEZAI, Physics Department, Samtah University Received Date: December 21, 2020
College, Jazan University, 45142 Jazan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Published Date: January 07, 2021

Abstract
The flow around three staggered square cylinders at two different triangular arrangements has been numerically analyzed in the present work.
The calculations are carried out for several values of Reynolds numbers ranging from 1 to 110. Three different states of flow are found in this study
by systematically varying Re. The critical Reynolds number is determined for both two arrangements. It is clear that the point of bifurcation is
strongly influenced by the type of the type of the triangular arrangement because both arrangements generate a large reduction in the value of the
critical Reynolds number. The unsteady periodic wake is characterized by the Strouhal number, which varies with the Reynolds number and also the
arrangement of the three cylinders. Hence, the values of vortex shedding frequencies are calculated for both triangular arrangements. Furthermore,
the drag and lift coefficients of three staggered squares cylinders in different triangular arrangements are determined.

Keywords: Staggered square cylinders; Flow regimes; Triangular arrangement; Strouhal number; Numerical simulation; Critical Reynolds
number; Lift and drag coefficients

Nomenclature:
Re - Reynolds number
l - channel width
h - channel height
(u, v) - velocity components, m s-1
x, y - dimensionless coordinates
St - Strouhal number
CD - drag coefficient
CL - lift coefficient
P - dimensionless pressure
Φ - generic variable
Greek symbols
ρ - density of fluid, kg m-3
ν - kinematic viscosity, m2s-1
Subscripts
Max, Min - maximum, minimum
c - Critical

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 Global Journal of Engineering Sciences Volume 7-Issue 1

Introduction
that the critical Reynolds number is reduced with increasing shear.
The examination of flow structures around staggered cylinders
Their results show that the mean drag coefficient decreases either
at different arrangements is important because many issues related
with increasing shear for a particular Reynolds number or with in-
to aerodynamics are placed in category of these types of flow and
creasing Reynolds number for a particular shear parameter.
in many applications. High-rise buildings, bridge piers, chimneys,
wind tunnel, cooling towers are examples of these applications. In the work of Cheng et al. [8], it was reported that that the vor-
However, three or more square cylinders make the problem com- tex shedding and wake development behind the square cylinder
plicated due to the interaction between shears layers and shedding are significantly dependent on both the magnitude of the shear rate
vortices in the wake region. For this reason, many investigations on and the Reynolds number. Indeed, they found that vortex shedding
the flow around cylinders with variety of arrangements have been disappeared for large shear parameters. The frequency of vortex
done. Indeed, the wake development behind these configurations shedding decreases as the shear parameter increases. Also, the
depends on Reynolds number, spacing between obstacles and the drag coefficient tends to decrease with increasing shear parameter.
structure of arrangement. Thus, it is important to understand the
Mukhopadhay et al. [9] analyzed the structure of a flow around
dramatic change in the wake structure. Therefore, many numeri-
a square obstacle for different Reynolds number and for different
cal investigations are available related to the characteristics of flow
positions of the obstacle. These researchers analyzed the effect of
around two or more bodies in different arrangements. For better
blockage ratio on the variation of Strouhal number based on the
understanding of the phenomenon of Hop bifurcation, one can refer
Reynolds number. In all cases, the Strouhal value increases with the
to the investigation of Yang and Zebib [1]. They showed that when
blocking ratio and undergoes a slight change with increasing Re.
the Reynolds number of about 20, an absolutely unstable region be-
Consequently, they determined the critical Reynolds number from
gins to form, and grows more and more with Re. Furthermore, they
which the flow becomes periodic and they concluded that the fre-
deduced that the critical Reynolds number corresponds to a state
quency starts at Re = 87 for a blockage ratio B/H = 0.25.
where all wake is absolutely unstable.
When two cylinders are placed in line, the flow characteristics
Fezai et al. [2] also examined the transition from a symmetric
could be substantially different from those of single cylinder due
flow state to the periodic state. They analyzed the vortex at differ-
to interactions of the wakes of the two cylinders. Vikram et al. [10]
ent arrangements of the two shapes. The analysis of the flow evolu-
examined the flow around two tandem square cylinders. They re-
tion shows that with increasing Re beyond a certain critical value,
ported that the vortex shedding frequency was suppressed due to
the flow becomes unstable and undergoes a bifurcation. Therefore,
introduction of second square cylinder.
they observed that the transition to unsteady regime is performed
by a Hopf bifurcation. Abbasi and Islam [11] simulated wake interactions of a flow
around two square cylinders which are placed in line with a fixed
The appearance criteria of different regimes such as crawling
space ratio equal to 3.5. They concluded that the unsteady regime
scheme, the steady and unsteady with releases of vortices strong-
appears when the Reynolds number reaches the value 55.
ly depends on the Reynolds number, so this conclusion was drawn
by Berrone et al. [3]. They also found that the results of numerical Recently, Burattini and Agrawal [12] analyzed the flow around
studies strongly depend on the choice of the mesh refinement, the two square cylinders at a Reynolds number of 73. They reported
passage of time and the domain size. This is well confirmed by the different ranges of the wake flow regimes.
work of Noack and Eckelmann [4]. They found that for all Reynolds
Rao et al. [13] investigated the effect of the space ratio on the
less than 54 the flow is stable, while the periodicity appears for 54
flow around two square cylinders arranged side by side. They found
<Re <170. Two solutions of supercritical Hopf bifurcation for Re =
that the frequency of vortex shedding is different in two wakes. The
54 and Re = 170 were predicted from which the flow passes to a
upper frequency is smaller than the lower frequency for small ra-
periodic three-dimensional appearance established.
tions (s<1.4). However, when the space rations increase, the fre-
The transitions in the wake of a square cylinder were also inves- quency of vortex shedding is almost equal in two wakes. They an-
tigated by Gera et al. [5]. They found that the flow around a single alyzed the influence of the space ration and Reynolds number on
square cylinder remains steady up to Re = 50 and instability occurs the drag and lift force. The difference of time-averaged drag and lift
between Re = 50 and 55. After this range, flow becomes complete- coefficients of the cylinders decreases with the increase in space ra-
ly unsteady. Similar observations were reported in the numerical tios. When s=2.0 and 2.5, the curves for the time averaged drag and
work of Kelkar and Patankar [6]. They concluded that the point of lift coefficient with different Reynolds numbers are smooth. Also,
instability is between Re = 50 and 60 and they computed the value they reported that when s=1.5 and 1.8, the curves are smooth un-
of the critical Reynolds number having a value Rec=53. der Re<140, but that will be fluctuant under Re>140 because of the
nonlinear interaction between the wakes and the instability of flow
Lankadasu and Vengadesan [7] analyzed numerically incom
becomes stronger with the increase in Reynolds numbers.
pressible linear shear flow across a square cylinder. They found

Citation: Salwa FEZAI, Racha NEFZI, Brahim BEN-BEYA. Analysis of the Interaction in Flow Around Three Staggered Square Cylinders Page 2 of 13
at Two Different Triangular Arrangements. Glob J Eng Sci. 7(1): 2021. GJES.MS.ID.000651. DOI: 10.33552/GJES.2021.07.000651.
 Global Journal of Engineering Sciences Volume 7-Issue 1

Adeeb et al. [14] investigated computationally the wake flow of cylinders at 100≤Re≤200. They also reported that in the second
two square cylinders by varying the corner radius to understand arrangement the vortex shedding of the primary cylinder was sup-
the effect of the gap spacing’s role and the wake flow pattern at Re pressed by the upstream two side by side cylinders at 103≤Re≤175.
= 100. They found that the flow characteristics and vortex shedding
We can also mention the work of Yang et al. [22]. They arranged
depend significantly on the corner radius and gap spacing. They
three stationary circular cylinders in such a way that one cylinder
concluded that a square cylinder exhibited the maximum average
was placed in front of two side by side cylinders and investigated
drag value and the inverse was observed in the case of a circular
the effect of the gap ratio in the range from g=1-10 for Re=200.
cylinder. Furthermore, aerodynamic forces were reduced by round-
They observed steady flow region at 1≤g≤1.2 and 2.5 ≤g≤3.1 and
ing the corner radius.
unsteady flow region at 1.3≤g≤2.4 and 3.2≤g≤10. They also found
Aboueian and Sohankar [15] examined the effect of the gap regular drag and lift coefficient in steady flow region which became
spacing on the flow over two square cylinders in staggered arrange- irregular in unsteady flow region.
ment at Re=150. By changing the gap spacing between cylinders,
Bao et al. [23] investigated the flow past an inline array of six
five different flow regimes are identified and classified.
square cylinders at Re = 100 and ranging from 1.5 to 15. They ob-
Investigations of flow characteristics of a row of square cylin- served six different kinds of flow patterns: steady wake, non-fully
ders arranged in side-by- side configuration also attracted a con- developed vortex street in single row and double-row, fully devel-
siderable amount of interest in the past. Abbasi et al. [16] have oped vortex street in double-row, fully developed vortex street in
conducted an investigation on the transition in flow states around partially recovered single-row, and fully developed multiple vortex
two-, three- and four-inline square cylinders the effect of Reynolds streets. They also observed that the first and second cylinder be-
numbers at two different gap spacing g = 2 and 5. Their results have similar to the two inline cylinders configuration in terms of
show that at g = 2, the range of Re for each flow state decreases by aerodynamic force coefficients while the other four cylinders expe-
increasing the number of cylinders in the array, while at g = 5, they rience periodic variation of forces with the increase in gap spacing.
observed the opposite trend. Hetz et al. [17] have also found that
The literature survey shows that not much attention has been
the Strouhal number of five inline circular cylinders increases with
paid to the flow around square cylinders in triangular arrangement.
increment in g. Manzoor et al. [18] reported that, at some spacing
This type of flow has not been examined yet for a wide range of
values, the downstream cylinders experience larger drag force as
Reynolds number and global parameters are not fully investigat-
compared to upstream cylinders due to turbulence effects in flow
ed. In the numerical work of Rahman et al. [24], the value of the
even at low Re values. Liu [19] examined the dependence of flow
critical Reynolds number, which characterizes the bifurcation point
induced forces on g and found that the drag coefficient (CD) of cyl-
from steady state to unsteady sate, has not been determined and
inders changes abruptly in the range between g= 3.5 and 4 due to
they have limited their work to a single value the Reynolds number
existence of critical spacing value in this range.
which has been set at 150. However, this limitation is not there in
Also, Zheng et al. [20] examined the effect of gap ratios rang- this work.
ing from 1.5 to 7 and two incidence angle ɵ= 0° and 180° on flow
Therefore, in this paper, we will focus on the flow around three
past three circular cylinders arranged in an equilateral triangular
square cylinders at two different types of triangular arrangements.
arrangement. They found that the proximity interference dominat-
The motivation of current study is to determine the exact value of
ed the flow interference among three cylinders at small gap spacing
the critical Reynolds number for both arrangements and analyze
g. At intermediate g, the gap flow became intense, weakening the
the effect of changing the arrangement of the three square cylin-
proximity interference, while the impact of the proximity effect be-
ders on the vortex shedding and on the drag and lift forces in order
came very weak and wake effects dominate the flow interference
to analyze the flow structure around two different arrangement at
among three cylinders at sufficiently large gap spacing. They also
steady, transitional and unsteady states.
reported that for small g the fluctuating forces on downstream cyl-
inders are very small and far less than those on a single cylinder The first task is essentially composed of six parts. Firstly, we
due to the proximity effect. present the configuration of the physical problem. The second part
is devoted to presentation of equations and boundary conditions.
Yang et al. [21] analyzed numerically the flow pattern and vor-
The numerical method used for solving the system of Navier-Stokes
tex suppression regions for three circular cylinders with two differ-
equations in its dimensionless form in the case of a two-dimen-
ent staggered arrangements. In the first arrangement a primary cyl-
sional (2D) incompressible flow is presented in the third part. The
inder was placed in front of downstream two side by side cylinders
fourth part is dedicated to the validation of the numerical in-house
and in the second arrangement a primary cylinder was placed in
code used and followed finally by results and discussions. The fifth
the wake of upstream two side by side cylinders. Their results show
part is consecrated for results and discussions. Finally, we will draw
that in the first arrangement, the vortex shedding behind the pri-
conclusions from this study in a final part.
mary cylinder was suppressed by the downstream two side by side

Citation: Salwa FEZAI, Racha NEFZI, Brahim BEN-BEYA. Analysis of the Interaction in Flow Around Three Staggered Square Cylinders Page 3 of 13
at Two Different Triangular Arrangements. Glob J Eng Sci. 7(1): 2021. GJES.MS.ID.000651. DOI: 10.33552/GJES.2021.07.000651.
 Global Journal of Engineering Sciences Volume 7-Issue 1

Physical Problem varying the arrangement of the three cylinders C1, C2 and C3. For
the first arrangement, the configuration is composed of three cylin-
The geometry of the problem of this particular study consists
ders C11, C21 and C31 as shown in the figure, but in the second con-
of a two-dimensional flow of a Newtonian incompressible fluid
figuration the arrangement of the three cylinders will be reversed
around three staggered square cylinders situated in a channel hav-
from the first configuration. In Figure 2 we have schematized the
ing a width l = 50H and a height h = 8H as sketched in Figure 1.
two arrangements that we will study and analyze.
In the present study, two configurations will be considered by

Figure 1: Physical model

Figure 2: Schematic of the two triangular arrangements of the three-square cylinders considered in this study.

Governing flow equations Generally, a dimensionless writing of the Navier-Stokes equa-

tions shows the usual dimensionless numbers. These parameters
The physical problem is governed by the Navier–Stokes equa-
characterize the similarity structure and stability of the flow. It is
tions for two-dimensional incompressible fluid flow. The continuity
1 H
and momentum equations are written in dimensionless form ex- p 0 = ρ0u02 t0 =
worth noting that the scales H, u0, 2 , and u0 are used
pressed as follows:
for the depersonalization of the coordinate space xi = (x,y), velocity
Generally, a dimensionless writing of the Navier-Stokes equa- ui = (u,v), pressure p and time t respectively.
tions shows the usual dimensionless numbers. These parameters
characterize the similarity structure and stability of

∂ui In the momentum equation, a dimensionless number appears

=0 (1)
∂xi that is the Reynolds number expressed by:

∂ui ∂ (ui u j ) ∂p 1 ∂ 2ui ue H

+ =+ (2) Re =
∂t ∂x j ∂xi Re ∂x j ∂xi
ν

Citation: Salwa FEZAI, Racha NEFZI, Brahim BEN-BEYA. Analysis of the Interaction in Flow Around Three Staggered Square Cylinders Page 4 of 13
at Two Different Triangular Arrangements. Glob J Eng Sci. 7(1): 2021. GJES.MS.ID.000651. DOI: 10.33552/GJES.2021.07.000651.
 Global Journal of Engineering Sciences Volume 7-Issue 1

Where ue= u0 is the velocity upstream, H is the side of the barri- at the vicinity of the barrier where strong gradients are expected.
er ν and is the kinematic viscosity of the fluid under consideration. Conversely, away from the obstacle where the expected gradients
are low, larger meshes are preferred.
Boundary conditions
The convergence of the numerical results is estab-
The boundary conditions for this physical problem are as fol-
lished at each time step according to the following criterion:
lowing:

• At the channel entrance:

∑φ m
i, j − φim, j−1 < 10−8

The horizontal u- velocity component has a uniform form u0 = 1 The generic variable ϕ stands for u, v or ϕ and m indicates the
The vertical component of the velocity v is set to zero. iteration time levels. In the above inequality, the subscript sequence
(i, j) stand for the grid indexing in the x, and y directions respec-
• On the obstacle, non-slip conditions are imposed; u = 0
tively.
and v = 0
In conclusion, it is worth noting that computations were per-
• At the exit of the channel: The convective condition [25]
formed by applying a developed home code named “NASIM” (Navi-
is written as follows:
er Stokes Incompressible Multigrid) [31,32] utilizing finite volume
method and the numerical procedure described above.
∂ui ∂u
0 where u = u = 1
+ uconv i = Results and Discussions
∂t ∂x conv e

• At the upper and lower walls: The far field boundaries are Time step independence test
∂u
defined as slip wall with ∂y
=0 and v= 0.
To ensure the accuracy of the results, it is necessary to verify
Numerical Method the numerical procedure.

The dimensionless Navier-Stokes equations were numerically The determination of the time step to be utilized in all calcula-
solved utilizing the following numerical technique based on the fi- tions is very important, since, a too large time step size will yield
nite volume method [26]. The temporal discretization of the time inaccurate results while an excessively small-time step is computa-
derivative is performed by a Euler backward second-order implic- tionally inefficient.
it scheme. Nonlinear terms are evaluated explicitly; then, viscous
Furthermore, several time step refinements were performed
terms are treated implicitly. The strong velocity–pressure coupling
for the present simulations with non-uniform grid m*n=768*160.
present in the continuity and the momentum equations is handled
It is worth noting that the grid independence study was conduct-
by applying the projection method [27]. A Poisson equation, with
ed for two different non uniform grids, namely, m*n=560*340 and
the divergence of the intermediate velocity field as the source term,
m*n=768*160. In the current investigation, independence of nu-
is then computed to obtain the pressure correction and the real ve-
merical results from the mesh size was assumed when the differ-
locity field. A finite volume method was utilized on a staggered grid
ence in the simulated values computed between two consecutive
system in order to discretize the system of equations to be solved.
grids was less than 1%. It was concluded from the deviation values
Furthermore, the QUICK scheme of Hayase et al. [28] is applied to
obtained that, a non-uniform grid of m*n=768*160 is sufficiently
minimize the numerical diffusion for the advective terms. The dis-
fine to ensure the grid independent solution and provides a good
cretized equations are computed utilizing the red and black point
compromise between accuracy and CPU time in the range of vari-
successive over-relaxation method [29] with the choice of optimum
ables to be investigated. Hence, the grid m*n=768*160 is applied to
relaxation factors. Besides, the resolution of the Poisson equation is
perform all subsequent calculations.
performed by applying an accelerated full multi-grid method [30].
To ensure the temporal convergence of results, two Figures 3
The construction of the mesh is the first step in any numerical
and 4 are reported describing the temporal evolution of the lift co-
simulation. The used meshes in this investigation are based on a
efficient and horizontal velocity components, respectively.
staggered grid where scalar quantities (pressure...) and located at
the center of the cell, while, the velocity components are defined at From Table 1, it is confirmed that the results of the calculations
the centers of faces of the volume controls. with the time step ∆t = 0.001 are nearly identical to the results with
∆t = 0.0025 and ∆t = 0.0005. That’s why the time step ∆t = 0.001 is
In order to ensure accuracy, the grids have denser clustering
applied in all simulations.
Table 1: Influence of time step (∆t) at Re = 50.
Dimensionless Time Step (∆t) Strouhal Number (St) Time Averaged Drag Coefficient max(CL) -min(CL)
0.005 0.0986 3.0331 0.2603
0.0025 0.1057 3.0334 0.2939

Citation: Salwa FEZAI, Racha NEFZI, Brahim BEN-BEYA. Analysis of the Interaction in Flow Around Three Staggered Square Cylinders Page 5 of 13
at Two Different Triangular Arrangements. Glob J Eng Sci. 7(1): 2021. GJES.MS.ID.000651. DOI: 10.33552/GJES.2021.07.000651.
 Global Journal of Engineering Sciences Volume 7-Issue 1

0.001 0.1101 3.033 0.3078

0.0005 0.112 3.0331 0.3131

Figure 3: Temporal evolution of the lift coefficient for different time step.

Figure 4: Temporal evolution of the horizontal velocity component for different time step.

Code validation The study was conducted over a range of Reynolds number
varying from 10 to 180 and analysis of the effect of this parameter
To give more confidence to the results of the current simula-
on the evolution of the Strouhal number and lift and drag coeffi-
tions, some quantitative and qualitative comparisons with other
cients was carried out.
numerical investigations presented in the literature have been car-
ried out. Then, the effect of Re on the Strouhal number (Figure 5) was
performed. It is noted that for relatively low Reynolds numbers (50
The physical problem that is used for the validation of the in-
< Re < 130) the Strouhal number increases with Re values. A signif-
house code “NASIM” is the physical model investigated by Breuer
icant change in the structure of flow takes place, namely the move-
et al. [33].
ment of separation point of the trailing edge to the leading edge of
In the current study, validation of the simulations was carried the square cylinder. The Strouhal number is at a maximum at nearly
out on a non-uniform mesh of dimension m*n =560*340 as the Re = 140 then decreases again for higher Reynolds numbers.
mesh used by Breuer et al. [33].

Citation: Salwa FEZAI, Racha NEFZI, Brahim BEN-BEYA. Analysis of the Interaction in Flow Around Three Staggered Square Cylinders Page 6 of 13
at Two Different Triangular Arrangements. Glob J Eng Sci. 7(1): 2021. GJES.MS.ID.000651. DOI: 10.33552/GJES.2021.07.000651.
 Global Journal of Engineering Sciences Volume 7-Issue 1

Figure 5 shows that our results are in good agreement with the arrangement of the cylinders on the transition from steady to un-
results of Breuer et al. [33] and Galleti et al. [34]. steady regime due to bifurcation. It can be seen in Figures 6,7 and
8 that there are two recirculating lobes occupying the entire space
As observed, this comparison validates our computer code
of the wake of each arrangement and the flow condition are steady.
making confidence on the presented results.
This is due to the fact that at such low value of Reynolds number
It is noted that validation of the computer code has already the viscous forces are dominant and resist the movement of flow.
been presented by Fezai et al. [2,14,35-37] which is a contribution
The temporal evolution of the horizontal velocity component U
of the current investigation.
and vertical velocity component V relative to the two arrangements
Influence of the type of triangular arrangement of cyl- considered in this investigation are shown in Figures 7 and 9. From
inders on the bifurcation point from stationary to un- these figures, it can be observed that the amplitude of the oscilla-
tions increases and then, after a certain time, it decreases and tends
steady regime
towards zero, which means that the stationary flow is stable be-
After validation, attention is now focused to analyze the in-
cause all the disturbances are damped.
fluence of the Reynolds number and the change of the triangular

Figure 5: Variation of the Strouhal values versus the Reynolds number.

Figure 6: Vorticity contours relatively to the arrangement I and for Re = 41.

Citation: Salwa FEZAI, Racha NEFZI, Brahim BEN-BEYA. Analysis of the Interaction in Flow Around Three Staggered Square Cylinders Page 7 of 13
at Two Different Triangular Arrangements. Glob J Eng Sci. 7(1): 2021. GJES.MS.ID.000651. DOI: 10.33552/GJES.2021.07.000651.
 Global Journal of Engineering Sciences Volume 7-Issue 1

Figure 7: Temporal evolution of the horizontal velocity component U and vertical velocity component V for arrangement I and for Re = 41.

Figure 8: Vorticity contours relatively to the arrangement II and for Re = 28.

Figure 9: Temporal evolution of the horizontal velocity component U and vertical velocity component V for arrangement II and for Re = 28.

It is very clear that the type of the triangular arrangement has As a result, the critical Re value at which the stationary charac-
ability to change flow behavior for different flow situations. ter disappears depends strongly on the type of triangular arrange-
ment of the three cylinders.
In fact, considering the first arrangement, the steady regime is
observed for Re = 41 while it remains steady up to a Reynolds value By increasing the Reynolds number, we note that the state of
equal to 28 relatively to the second arrangement. It can be deduced flow of the two triangular arrangements becomes unsteady and
then that the first arrangement tends to stabilize the flow and this is well visualized in Figures 10, 11, 12 and 13. It is clear that the
strengthen the critical Reynolds value compared to the arrange- perturbations can no longer be damped because the flow becomes
ment II in which the critical Reynolds number is very close to 28. unsteady and the Reynolds number exceeds the critical value.

We can then deduce that the flow remains steady in the range Figures also shows that the unsteady state of flow occurs at a
1≤Re≤41 for the arrangement I. For the cases of the arrangement II, Reynolds number very close to 46.5 which means that the tran-
the flow remains steady in the ranges 1≤ Re ≤ 28. sitional state of flow around the first triangular arrangement re-
mains in the range 41<Rec<46,5. Similarly, the value of the critical
From this observation, it can be clinched that Rec>41 for the
Reynolds number of arrangement II is between Re=28 and Re=30
first arrangement and Rec>28 for the 2nd triangular arrangement.
(28<Rec<30).

Citation: Salwa FEZAI, Racha NEFZI, Brahim BEN-BEYA. Analysis of the Interaction in Flow Around Three Staggered Square Cylinders Page 8 of 13
at Two Different Triangular Arrangements. Glob J Eng Sci. 7(1): 2021. GJES.MS.ID.000651. DOI: 10.33552/GJES.2021.07.000651.
 Global Journal of Engineering Sciences Volume 7-Issue 1

Figure 10: Vorticity contours relatively to the arrangement I and for Re = 46.5.

Figure 11: Temporal evolution of the horizontal velocity component U and vertical velocity component V for arrangement I and for Re=46.5.

Figure 12: Vorticity contours relatively to the arrangement II and for Re = 30.

Figure 13: Temporal evolution of the horizontal velocity component U and vertical velocity component V for arrangement II and for Re=30.

Citation: Salwa FEZAI, Racha NEFZI, Brahim BEN-BEYA. Analysis of the Interaction in Flow Around Three Staggered Square Cylinders Page 9 of 13
at Two Different Triangular Arrangements. Glob J Eng Sci. 7(1): 2021. GJES.MS.ID.000651. DOI: 10.33552/GJES.2021.07.000651.
 Global Journal of Engineering Sciences Volume 7-Issue 1

Figure 14: Strouhal number as a function of Reynolds number relatively to the considered arrangements.

Figure 15: Time-averaged drag coefficient evolution of the three-square cylinders as a function of Reynolds number for the two triangular
arrangements.

Figure 16: Time-averaged lift coefficient evolution of the three-square cylinders as a function of Reynolds number for the two triangular
arrangements.

We then find that the transition to the unsteady regime begins cle is a single square cylinder, we note that there is a big difference
in the wake of the second triangular arrangement and then in the in the flow structure. Again, the flow around a square cylinder re-
wake of the first arrangement. mains stationary up to a fairly high Reynolds number compared to
our results.
Therefore, the two triangular arrangements of the three-square
cylinders considered in this investigation result a significant re- Indeed, Kelkar and Patankar [6] have focused on the study of in-
duction in the value of the critical Reynolds number. In addition, stability that causes a steady laminar flow behind a square cylinder
these triangular arrangements accelerate the birth and generation to result in an unstable laminar flow. They showed that the point of
of vortices. instability is between Re = 50 and 60 and they computed the value
of the critical Reynolds number having a value Rec=53.
Comparing the present results with the one in which the obsta-

Citation: Salwa FEZAI, Racha NEFZI, Brahim BEN-BEYA. Analysis of the Interaction in Flow Around Three Staggered Square Cylinders Page 10 of 13
at Two Different Triangular Arrangements. Glob J Eng Sci. 7(1): 2021. GJES.MS.ID.000651. DOI: 10.33552/GJES.2021.07.000651.
 Global Journal of Engineering Sciences Volume 7-Issue 1

In the case of a flow around two square cylinders that are placed the aerodynamic forces. We have also analyzed this phenomenon
in line with a fixed space ratio g = 3.5 (g= spacing ratio) (Abbasi and in current investigation.
Islam [11]), the unsteady regime appears when the Reynolds num-
The fluctuation of the average drag coefficient for flow around
ber has a value of 55.
three square cylinders in two different triangular arrangements
Sarwar Abbasi et al. [16] also found that at g = 5 the unsteady with Re is shown in Figure 16. For small Reynolds numbers, the
state of flow occurs at Re = 85 which means that the transitional average drag coefficient of all cylinders in both triangular arrange-
state of flow around four-inline cylinders remains in the range 68 ments show decreasing trend with increment in Re. The drag force
≤ Re ≤ 84 and the range of Re for transitional flow state in the cases induced on cylinders is developed by the pressure and viscous
of two- and three-inline cylinders is 63 ≤ Re ≤ 72 and 68 ≤ Re ≤ 82, forces acting on the three cylinders. Therefore, the reason of this
respectively. decrease is that as Re increases, the viscous forces become weaker.
Due to this fact, the thickness of shear layers reduces, which results
Influence of the type of the triangular arrangement of
in weaker drag forces. Also, the average drag coefficient is higher
three-square cylinders on Strouhal number in steady state of flow than that in transitional and unsteady states
The Strouhal number St as a function of Re for the two trian- of flow because the CD values in these two states vary very slight-
gular arrangements considered is shown in Figure 14. It is very ly. In addition, it should be noted that the CD values of the three
important to mention here that in the present investigation St indi- cylinders in the two triangular arrangements became almost equal
cates the primary vortex shedding frequency, while, itis calculated when 60≤Re≤120. However, the difference between the CD values
by applying fast Fourier transform (FFT) technique on lift coeffi- appears for the low Reynolds numbers.
cients.
Interestingly, the present results show that the CD values of the
From Figure 14, it can be observed that St is generated at Re = three cylinders in arrangement I are very low compared to those of
50 in the arrangement I. However, in the arrangement II St is gen- arrangement II.
erated at Re = 30. It is important to mention here that the unsteady
A comparison was made between the mean drag coefficient val-
regime begins in arrangement II then in arrangement I and this
ues of the three cylinders of each triangular arrangement and the
comes back to the influence of the type of the triangular arrange-
CD values of an isolated square cylinder (Figure 15), it was found
ment of the three cylinders. It can be seen that the St of the three
that the type of triangular arrangement of the three cylinders sig-
cylinders increases monotonically with Re and this is well noted in
nificantly changes the fluctuation in drag force.
the two arrangements (I and II). Furthermore, it exhibits increasing
behavior with increment in the Re values. This is due to the fact For the low Reynolds numbers (1≤Re≤10), the CD values of
that as Re increases, the shear layers become thin and the strength the three cylinders in both arrangements are very low compared
of vortices increases, which results in increment in the values of St. to those of the isolated cylinder. It can be deduced that the two tri-
angular arrangements of the three cylinders result in a significant
It is clear from the figure that the values of the Strouhal number
decrease in CD values. When 10≤Re≤50, for arrangement I the CD
of the three cylinders in arrangement I are greater than the values
values of the two cylinders C21 and C31 are equal to the CD values
of St of a single square cylinder. Inversely to arrangement I, the St
of the isolated cylinder, but the CD values of the C11 cylinder are
values of the three cylinders in arrangement II are smaller than the
slightly higher compared to those of the isolated square cylinder.
St values of a single square cylinder.
Inversely to arrangement I, all the CD values of the two cylinders
Consequently, we can explain the increase and the decrease C22 and C32 of arrangement II are found above the line for that of
of the values of St which were noted respectively in arrangement the single cylinder when 10≤Re≤50 and the CD curve of the C12
I and arrangement II by the significant influence of the type of the cylinder is found confused with that of the insulated square cylin-
triangular arrangement of the three cylinders on the mechanism of der. When 50≤Re≤120, all curves of the average drag coefficient of
detachment of vortices. the three cylinders in the two triangular arrangements are found
above the line corresponding to the single square cylinder with a
We can also be seen in Figure 15 that the values St of the three
slight difference.
cylinders in arrangement I are very close. Also, in arrangement II,
the three cylinders have values very close to St. This indicates that Influence of the type of the triangular arrangement of
all the cylinders lose vortices at very close frequencies. the three-square cylinders on the average lift coefficient
Influence of the type of the triangular arrangement of When a square cylinder is in cross flow, the lift force is only
the three-square cylinders on the drag force generated by vortex shedding caused by the movement of the vor-
tex from top to bottom and from bottom to top. The dependency
According to previous studies [16], the addition of one or more
of mean lift coefficient is demonstrated in Figure 16. The single
squares cylinders in the wake of single body significantly affects
square cylinder data is also given for comparison.

Citation: Salwa FEZAI, Racha NEFZI, Brahim BEN-BEYA. Analysis of the Interaction in Flow Around Three Staggered Square Cylinders Page 11 of 13
at Two Different Triangular Arrangements. Glob J Eng Sci. 7(1): 2021. GJES.MS.ID.000651. DOI: 10.33552/GJES.2021.07.000651.
 Global Journal of Engineering Sciences Volume 7-Issue 1

Interestingly, the present results show that the values of the av- presented in terms of vorticity contours, temporal evolution of ve-
erage lift coefficient of the two cylinders C2 and C3 evolve symmet- locity and temporal histories of drag and lift coefficients.
rically with respect to the cylinder C1. Therefore, the mean lift coef-
Important findings of this numerical investigation are given be-
ficient of cylinder C2 has the identical magnitude but opposite sign
low:
as compared to that of cylinder C3 and this is well noted in the two
triangular arrangements. The average lift coefficients of cylinder C3 • The effect of the type of the triangular arrangement of the
are always negative, while those of cylinder C2 are positive, imply- three-square cylinders on the birth of the vortex detachment
ing that lift forces on the cylinders are always repulsive. Again, for and on the transitional state from the steady state to the un-
Arrangement I, it is found that there is a significant difference for steady state was examined. We then found that the flow re-
mean lift coefficients between cylinders C2 and C3 for low Reynolds mains steady in the range 1≤Re≤41 for the arrangement I. For
numbers because the largest value of CL corresponds to cylinder the cases of the arrangement II, the flow remains steady in the
C3 for Re = 1 and the most low value of CL corresponds to cylinder ranges 1≤ Re ≤ 28. Therefore, it can be clinched that Rec>41
C2 and also when Re = 1. By increasing the Reynolds number, we for the first arrangement and Rec>28 for the 2nd triangular ar-
notice that the values of CL of cylinder C3 decrease and the values rangement. It is very important to mention that the critical Re
of CL of cylinder C2 increase. When 40 <Re <120, the CL curves of value depends strongly on the type of triangular arrangement
the three cylinders C1, C2, C3 and also the isolated cylinder merge, of the three-square cylinders.
which proves the equality of the CL values which are almost zero. • The influence of the type of triangular arrangement on the evo-
This shows that the interaction between the wakes of three stag- lution of the Strouhal number has been analyzed. The values of
gered square cylinders is almost negligible. the Strouhal number of the three cylinders in arrangement I
However, for arrangement II, the curve which corresponds to have been found to be greater than the values of St in arrange-
the third cylinder C3 increases with the increase in Reynolds num- ment II. This comes back to the significant influence of the type
bers, so this increase is very important for the low Reynolds num- of triangular arrangement of the three cylinders on the detach-
bers (1 <Re <30). On the other hand, for the second cylinder C2, ment mechanism of the vortices.
the average value of the coefficient of lift decreases intensively es- • The fluctuation of the average drag coefficient for flow around
pecially when 1 <Re <30, thus this fluctuation becomes very small three square cylinders in two different triangular arrange-
while increasing Re. By continuing to increase Re, the values of CL ments with Re has been analyzed. Therefore, the CD values of
of two cylinders C2 and C3 become very close with those of cylinder the three cylinders in arrangement I are very low compared
C1 and also of the insulated cylinder. to those of arrangement II. It was found that the type of trian-
Similarly, for large values of the Reynolds number, the curves of gular arrangement of the three cylinders significantly changes
cylinders C2 and C3 evolve symmetrically with respect to the curve the fluctuation in drag force.
of cylinder C1. This symmetry indicates that the direction of the lift • The purpose of the research is to know the effect of the type of
force applied to the cylinder C2 is opposite to the direction of the lift the triangular arrangement of the three cylinders on the fluc-
force of the cylinder C3. Therefore, this inversely in the direction of tuation of the lift; we have illustrated the variation of the av-
the lift force is due to the arrangement of the three cylinders [37]. erage lift coefficient as a function of the Reynolds number. We
In general, the cylinder C32 has a CL greater than the other cyl- have found that the two arrangements considered in this study
inders in the two arrangements considered in this study; however, considerably affect the fluctuation of the lift force.
cylinder C22 has the lowest CL values compared to the other cylin-
Acknowledgement
ders in the two triangular arrangements. This might be due to the
strong vortex shedding from the free stream sides. We can see that None.
the type of triangular arrangement of the three cylinders has a con- Conflict of Interest
siderable influence on the fluctuation of the lift force. No conflict of interest.
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Citation: Salwa FEZAI, Racha NEFZI, Brahim BEN-BEYA. Analysis of the Interaction in Flow Around Three Staggered Square Cylinders Page 12 of 13
at Two Different Triangular Arrangements. Glob J Eng Sci. 7(1): 2021. GJES.MS.ID.000651. DOI: 10.33552/GJES.2021.07.000651.
 Global Journal of Engineering Sciences Volume 7-Issue 1

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Citation: Salwa FEZAI, Racha NEFZI, Brahim BEN-BEYA. Analysis of the Interaction in Flow Around Three Staggered Square Cylinders Page 13 of 13
at Two Different Triangular Arrangements. Glob J Eng Sci. 7(1): 2021. GJES.MS.ID.000651. DOI: 10.33552/GJES.2021.07.000651.