Flow control of circular cylinder with a V-grooved micro-riblet film

Abstract Flow structure around a circular cylinder with a V-grooved micro-riblet is investigated experimentally. The results are compared with that of a smooth cylinder having the same diameter. A flexible V-shaped micro-riblet with peak-to-peak spacing of 300 μ m is made using a MEMS fabrication process of PDMS (Polydimethylsiloxane) replica. The flexible micro-riblet is attached on a circular cylinder with which grooves are aligned with the streamwise flow direction. Drag force acting on the cylinder is measured for Reynolds numbers based on a cylinder diameter ( D = 18 mm ) in the range Re D = 2.5 × 10 3 – 3.8 × 10 4 . At Re D = 3.6 × 10 3 ( U 0 = 3 m / s ) , the V-grooved micro-riblet cylinder reduces drag coefficient by 7.6%, compared with a cylinder with smooth PDMS surface. However, it increases drag coefficient about 4.2% at Re D = 3.6 × 10 4 ( U 0 = 30 m / s ) . Flow field around the micro-riblet cylinder is measured by using a 2-frame PIV velocity field measurement technique. Several hundreds instantaneous velocity fields are ensemble-averaged to get the spatial distributions of turbulent statistics including turbulence intensities and turbulent kinetic energy. For the case of drag reduction at Re D = 4.8 × 10 3 , the vortex formation region behind the V-grooved MRF cylinder is reduced about 10%, compared with the smooth cylinder due to enhanced entrainment of ambient inviscid fluid into the wake region. In addition, the total number of secondary vortices located inside the near wake region is decreased about 20%.