Influence of Turbulence Intensity and Turbulence Length Scale on the Drag, Lift and Heat Transfer of A Circular Cylinder

Influence of the turbulence intensity and turbulence length scale on the hydrodynamic characteristics and heat transfer of a circular cylinder, streamlined by a viscous fluid flow, is numerically studied. We take the Reynolds number of the oncoming flow equal to 4×10⁴, the turbulence intensity Tu_f and the dimensionless turbulence length scale L_f varying from 1.0% to 40% and from 0.25 to 4.0, respectively. We confirmed that the increase of Tu_f leads to the suppression of the periodic vortex shedding from the cylinder surface, and as a result the stationary mode of streamlining is formed. Consequently, with the increasing turbulence intensity directly in front of the cylinder Tu^*, the amplitude of the lift coefficient decreases monotonically. Nevertheless, the time-averaged drag coefficient of the streamlined cylinder decreases at Tu^*<6.0%, and increases at Tu^*>9.0%. The dependence of the average Nusselt number on Tu^* is near-linear, and with the increasing turbulence intensity, the Nusselt number rises. However, the change of the average Nusselt number depending on L_f is non-monotonic and at L_f=1.0, the value reaches its maximum.