On vortex shedding behind a circular disk

Abtract Experiments were performed for individual realizations of the vortex shedding process behind a circular disk at Reynolds numbers of 103–105, at which periodic vortex shedding prevails in the wake. The phase differences regarding the individual vortex shedding structures detected at multiple circumferential locations in the wake were obtained by analyzing the hot-wire signals with a conditional-sampling scheme. The phase differences of vortex shedding detected at circumferential positions 90° apart show a wide scatter, but the anti-phase character is largely preserved in the individual vortex shedding process as detected at circumferential locations 180° apart. The randomness of phase differences involved in the vortex shedding process is noted to be essential in order to satisfy the axisymmetric property of the global flow.