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doi: 10.1007/s11433-012-4982-4
State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis for Industrial Equipment, Faculty of Vehicle Engineering and Mechanics,
Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116023, China;
2
Cardiff School of Engineering, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF24 3AA, Wales, UK
Received July 2, 2012; accepted September 5, 2012; published online January 21, 2013
This paper focuses on numerical simulations of bluff body aerodynamics with three-dimensional CFD (computational fluid
dynamics) modeling, where a computational scheme for fluid-structure interactions is implemented. The choice of an appropriate turbulence model for the computational modeling of bluff body aerodynamics using both two-dimensional and
three-dimensional CFD numerical simulations is also considered. An efficient mesh control method which employs the mesh
deformation technique is proposed to achieve better simulation results. Several long-span deck sections are chosen as examples
which were stationary and pitching at a high Reynolds number. With the proposed CFD method and turbulence models, the
force coefficients and flutter derivatives thus obtained are compared with the experimental measurement results and computed
values completely from commercial software. Finally, a discussion on the effects of oscillation amplitude on the flutter instability of a bluff body is carried out with extended numerical simulations. These numerical analysis results demonstrate that the
proposed three-dimensional CFD method, with proper turbulence modeling, has good accuracy and significant benefits for
aerodynamic analysis and computational FSI studies of bluff bodies.
bluff body, aerodynamic analysis, fluid-structure interaction, three-dimensional CFD modeling, flutter
PACS number(s): 02.70.-c, 47.11.Df, 47.27.E-, 47.27.nb
Citation:
Bai Y G, Yang K, Sun D K, et al. Numerical aerodynamic analysis of bluff bodies at a high Reynolds number with three-dimensional CFD modeling.
Sci China-Phys Mech Astron, 2013, 56: 277289, doi: 10.1007/s11433-012-4982-4
www.springerlink.com
278
Bai Y G, et al.
Three-dimensional wind flow past three bridge deck sections is investigated and simulations yield the aerodynamic
force coefficients and flutter derivatives obtained from simulating the motion-induced aerodynamic forces when the
deck cross sections oscillate within an incompressible flow
with a high Reynolds number. In addition, the effects of
oscillation amplitude on the flutter instability of them are
studied.
1 Turbulence modeling
Most engineering flows being studied are turbulent, thus we
have to consider how to represent or model the effects of
turbulence in simulating these flows. One issue for researchers is to make appropriate choice of models for particular flows [24]. Though the Navier-Stokes equations can
describe a turbulent flow including all the turbulent eddy
details, the computational cost of direct numerical simulation (DNS) is huge. There are mainly other three kinds of
turbulence models: RANS (Reynolds averaged NavierStokes Equations), LES, and DES (= hybrid RANS/LES)
[21,25].
1.1
RANS models
1.92 [26].
(k)
( kui )
t
xi
xi
k
k
Gk Yk ,
xi
(1)
( )
( ui )
t
xi
xi
G Y
xi
(2)
(3)
Bai Y G, et al.
S 2 Sij Sij
with
t
Sij
1 ui u j
2 x j xi
(4)
t C
2 k 500
, 2 .
0.09 y y
2 max
(5)
Gk , Yk C2
2
k
xi
Gk = min ( t S , 10 k ) , Yk .
2
(8)
G.
t k
(9)
1 k
,
xi xi
(10)
500
4k
k
1 min max
, 2 ,
2
0.09
,2 D y
1
F1 / ,1 (1 F1 ) / ,2
(14)
k ,1 1.176, k ,2 1.0,
ui
0,
xi
(15)
ij p ij
u i u i u j
,
t
x j
x j xi x j
(16)
ij kk ij 2 t Sij ,
(17)
(11)
(7)
1
,
F1 / k ,1 (1 F1 ) / k ,2
t
G Y D .
xi
1.2
( )
( ui )
t
xi
(13)
F1 1 (1 F1 ) 2 ,
(12)
(6)
k
1
,
279
280
Bai Y G, et al.
(18)
(19)
where a and b are the field vectors consisting of the unknowns at the time step n+1 currently being solved for. Let
us denote the discretized vector of velocities in the fluid by
u, the corresponding pressures by p, the discretized displacement vector in the structure by and the discretized
(20)
(21)
S b(i 1) f a (i 1) ,
N a (i 1) , b(i ) 0,
(22)
a ( k 1) F a ( k ) , a ( k ) , b( k 1) G a ( k 1) , b( k ) ,
(23)
Structure examples
Bai Y G, et al.
281
Figure 2
rotate in the rigid plane which contains the shear centre response of the cylinder. Grids falling in the buffer region are
updated with mesh movements that are interpolated from
those at R R1 and at R R2 . Bai et al. [11] improved
this algorithm through adding a wake zone in the buffer
region ( R1 R R2 ) and got better computed results for
airfoils than those without wake zone, as shown in Figure 3.
The algorithm is summarized as:
Figure 1 The three long-span bridge deck sections G1G3 used. They all
have a vertical axis of symmetry.
G2 and G3 are typical bluff bodies with sharp edges. Particularly, the section G3, which has infamous aerodynamic
instability because it is the prototype of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the USA, was destroyed in 1954 by a steady
wind with the small velocity of 20 m/s. So it is necessary to
investigate these structures.
3.2
xS xS 0 TS xS 0 ,
R2 R
TS xS 0 ,
xS xS 0
R
2 R1
x x ,
S0
S
R1 R R2 ,
(24)
R R2 ,
TS xS ,
(25)
where
R R1 ,
sin z
cos z
0
0
0 .
1
Figure 3
Mesh geometry.
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Bai Y G, et al.
cells, of which 44368 are in the rigid region and 10240 are
in the wake. Two-dimensional meshes for the other two
deck sections were similar to that for G1, and the cell numbers of the two-dimensional models for the other sections
are, respectively 65100 and 72728 (see the left-hand column
in Figure 4).
The main difference between two-dimensional and
three-dimensional CFD modeling is the model thickness
(i.e., perpendicular to the sections shown in Figure 1).
Meshes along the thickness direction of G1 are shown in
Figure 5. This influences the number of cells in the mesh
significantly. Many CFD methods use a very small thickness or a two-dimensional model because of the limitations
of computation capacity and uncertainty about accuracy.
For example, increasing the thickness of 0.1 m of the
two-dimensional model of section G3 to 1 m for the
three-dimensional model leads to a huge number of cells
(4089792), which require parallel computing and much
CPU time. The right-hand column of Figure 4 shows threedimensional meshes for the three sections when they all
have thickness 1 m. The numbers of cells for the three sections are respectively: 3695552, 3601600, and 4089792.
4.1
Figure 5
D
1
U 2 Bl
2
, Cl
L
1
U 2 Bl
2
, Cm
M
1
U 2 B 2 l
2
, (26)
Bai Y G, et al.
283
Figure 6 Time traces showing evolution with the time step of the aerodynamic force coefficients for the fixed deck section G1 at 0 angle of
attack: (a) two-dimensional CFD simulation; (b) three-dimensional CFD
simulation.
force coefficients Cd , Cl and Cm of section G2 for different angles of attack using two-dimensional () and
three-dimensional () CFD modeling. Clearly there are
many differences between the two-dimensional and
three-dimensional values of section G2. Table 1 shows the
comparison of drag coefficient values among the present
CFD method, wind tunnel test and DVM method, and it is
obviously that the present three-dimensional CFD method
has better accuracy than two-dimensional ones.
Though most wind tunnel test results could not be obtained, it is reasonable to anticipate that the values using
three-dimensional CFD would be more accurate than those
using two-dimensional ones and that three-dimensional
CFD simulations have important practical significance for
blunt bodies.
The features of the flow field at different parts can be
shown visually, which is another advantage of three-dimensional CFD simulations. For example, the three-dimensional
wake flows for the three deck cross sections are shown pictorially in Figure 8. Hence it can be seen that section G1 has
the best aerodynamic stability, while section G3 has the
worst. Such visualization of wake through three-dimensional CFD simulations is of direct benefit for aerodynamic
analysis of structures.
Figure 7 Computed aerodynamic force coefficients versus angle of attack for the five generic deck sections: = three-dimensional CFD; =
two-dimensional CFD.
Table 1
section
Wind
tunnel test
0.3
DVM
method
0.27
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Bai Y G, et al.
Figure 10
Figure 11
Figure 8 Pictures of the three-dimensional wake flow for the three sections G1G3.
Figure 9
and the variation of vortex are obviously different. Therefore, only three dimensional numerical simulations can be
used to implement qualitative analysis of bluff body aerodynamics.
4.2
Bai Y G, et al.
h
B
h
K 2 A3* K 2 A4* , (27)
M U 2 B 2 KA1* KA2*
U
U
B
h
B
h
K 2 H 3* K 2 H 4* , (28)
L U 2 B KH1* KH 2*
U
U
B
(29)
The motion induced forces are also assumed to be harmonic, with identical but a phase shift relative to the
motion. Replacing exp(i ) by ( cos i sin ) to determine the flutter derivatives from eqs. (27) and (28) gives
A1*
A3*
285
M h (t ) sin
M (t ) sin
, A2*
,
2
2
h0 K U B
0 K 2 U 2 B 2
M (t ) cos
M (t ) cos
, A4* h 2
,
2
2 2
h0 K U 2 B
0 K U B
L (t ) sin
L (t ) sin
H h 2
, H 2* 2
,
2
h0 K U
0 K U 2 B
(30)
*
1
H 3*
L (t ) cos
L (t ) cos
, H 4* h 2
,
2
2
h0 K U 2
0 K U B
Figure 12 Three-dimensional simulated motion-induced aerodynamic force time traces (----) and corresponding sinusoidal least-squares fit (solid curve),
for section G3 with 0=3 and U*=6.
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Bai Y G, et al.
Figure 13 Comparison of the three-dimensional () and two-dimensional () CFD computed values for the flutter derivatives of section G1 with wind
tunnel test results () , computed values from ANSYS workbench () and the curve obtained via DVM.
Figure 14 Comparison of the three-dimensional () and two-dimensional () CFD computed values for the flutter derivatives of section G2 with wind
tunnel test results () , computed values from ANSYS workbench () and the curve obtained via DVM.
Bai Y G, et al.
287
Figure 15 Comparison of the three-dimensional () and two-dimensional () CFD computed values for the flutter derivatives of section G3 with wind
tunnel test results () and the curve obtained via DVM.
two-dimensional () and three-dimensional () CFD simulations. The results given by DVM (solid lines), ANSYS
workbench () and from the wind tunnel test () are also
given for comparison, noting that the wind tunnel test results are incomplete, and for section G3 none are available
for A1* and A3* . The meshes and parameters used by
ANSYS workbench are the same as those of the present
CFD simulations. However, ANSYS has its own mesh deformation algorithm which is different from that of sect.
3.2.1.
It can be seen that the present three-dimensional CFD
simulations mostly give better results than the DVM method
and ANSYS workbench, though sometimes all results are in
good agreement. For A2* , which is well-known to be a critical parameter for flutter [29], the present three-dimensional
CFD method has obtained exact results when compared to
wind tunnel results. It can be concluded that no matter if the
structure belongs to streamline body or bluff body, the present three-dimensional CFD method gives better predictions
for flutter derivatives of bluff bodies, which have relatively
poor aerodynamic stabilities than the DVM method and
ANSYS workbench.
4.3 Forced vibration amplitude influences on the flutter derivatives
5 Conclusions
The main aim of the current study is to investigate the bluff
body aerodynamics with three-dimensional CFD modeling
at a high Reynolds number and proper turbulence models.
The results presented are encouraging and demonstrate the
accuracy of the proposed three-dimensional CFD method. It
has been shown that the present three-dimensional CFD
method is an effective numerical tool for evaluating the
aerodynamic stability instability of bluff bodies.
Three long-span bridge deck cross sections were investigated, using both two-dimensional and three-dimensional
CFD modeling. Comparisons of flutter derivatives were
given by the CFD method, along with those given by the
DVM method, the commercial software system ANSYS
288
Figure 16
Bai Y G, et al.
Influence of increasing forced vibration amplitudes. Computed results are shown for A*j and H *j , ( j 2, 3) for 0 = 3 (); 8 (); and 12
(). Wind tunnel test results () and the curve obtained via DVM are also shown for comparison.
Appendix
7
8
9
10
11
Table A1 The values of y+ obtained from both two-dimensional and
three-dimensional CFD simulations
Section
Two-dimensional CFD
Three-dimensional CFD
G1
1.7655
1.8236
G2
1.6397
1.7214
G3
1.6027
1.9574
12
13
Bai Y G, et al.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
289