Systematical study on the aerodynamic control mechanisms of a 1:2 rectangular cylinder with Kirigami scales

Biomimetic flow control is being widely applied. In the present study, a biomimetic flow control method, i.e., Kirigami scales, was applied on a 1:2 rectangular cylinder. The effects of scales' shapes and pasting surfaces on the aerodynamics and circumferential flow patterns of a 1:2 rectangular cylinder were studied. Three scale shapes were investigated with different pasting methods, i.e., elliptical, circular, and triangular scales. The Reynolds number (Re) was set at 1.3–3.1 × 104. The surface pressure distributions and the integrated aerodynamic forces were further analyzed at Re = 1.3 × 104. Results show that pasting the elliptical scales on all surfaces performs best, reaching a 2.4% drag reduction and a 76.4% lift reduction. Moreover, the elliptical and triangular scales on the windward and leeward surfaces can significantly reduce the Re effect. To reveal the control mechanism, the particle image velocimetry technique was employed to obtain the circumferential and wake flow fields. The time-averaged and phase-averaged results indicate that the Kirigami scales can push the interactions of shear layers and the shedding vortices further downstream. The Proper orthogonal decomposition analysis and time-averaged turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) results indicate that the wake vortex shedding is significantly suppressed. The spanwise wake flow field was also investigated. Results show that the spanwise TKE values are significantly reduced. This study further deepened the application of Kirigami scales on the common blunt bodies.