The Effects of Roughness and Shear on Vortex Shedding Cell Lengths Behind a Circular Cylinder

Circular cylinders of aspect ratio L/D=17 were tested in a wind tunnel under a wide range of spanwise upstream velocity shears. The correlation between upstream shear, characterized by a nondimensional shear parameter β, and the spanwise lengths of constant vortex shedding frequency was sought for both smooth and rough cylinders in transitional Reynolds numbers flows. Among the significant conclusions are that the spanwise range in shedding frequencies decreases with increasing roughness, the average constant shedding frequency cell length increases with increasing roughness for constant shear, and the average cell length decreases with increasing upstream shear for constant roughness.