Fluid Forces and Vortex Patterns of an Oscillating Cylinder Pair in Still Water With Both Fixed Side-by-Side and Tandem Configurations

Models of cylinders in the oscillatory flow can be found virtually everywhere in the marine industry, such as pump towers experiencing sloshing load in a liquefied natural gas ship liquid tank. However, compared to the problem of a cylinder in the uniform flow, a cylinder in the oscillatory flow is less studied, let alone multiple cylinders. Therefore, we experimentally and numerically studied two identical circular cylinders oscillating in the still water with either a side-by-side or a tandem configuration for a wide range of Keulegan–Carpenter number and Stokes number β. The experimental result shows that the hydrodynamic performance of an oscillating cylinder pair in the still water is greatly altered due to the interference between the multiple structures with different configurations. In specific, compared to the single cylinder case, the drag coefficient is greatly enhanced when two cylinders are placed side-by-side at a small gap ratio, while dual cylinders in a tandem configuration obtain a smaller drag coefficient and oscillating lift coefficient. In order to reveal the detailed flow physics that results in significant fluid forces alternations, the detailed flow visualization is provided by the numerical simulation: the small gap between two cylinders in a side-by-side configuration will result in a strong gap jet that enhances the energy dissipation and increases the drag, while due to the flow blocking effect for two cylinders in a tandem configuration, the drag coefficient decreases.