Is No-Slip Necessary for Vorticity Generation and Shedding over a Circular Cylinder?

Abstract

It is traditionally believed that the no-slip boundary condition is necessary for vorticity generation, as might be implied by the Lighthill vorticity generation mechanism. However, the investigations of Morton (1984) and Terrington et al. (2020) assert that the vorticity-generation mechanism is independent of the no-slip boundary condition. To investigate this hypothesis, we simulate viscous flow over a circular cylinder in the laminar periodic von Kármán vortex-shedding regime at Re = 170, without enforcing the no-slip condition at the wall. Instead, we close the wall tangential velocity and its normal derivative using one-sided finite-difference approximations. Accordingly, the wall tangential velocity is dynamically determined from the evolving interior solution rather than prescribed. The resulting flows exhibit qualitatively similar patterns of periodic vortex shedding across all three wall treatments (no-slip, second- and third-order one-sided approximations), although the mean drag coefficient, r.m.s. lift coefficient, and Strouhal number differ from those of the standard no-slip simulation. More significantly, the velocity distributions just outside the boundary layer closely match those of the standard no-slip simulation, regardless of the approximation order. In particular, the circulation evaluated along a contour at the edge of the boundary layer, which corresponds to the total vorticity contained within the layer in the no-slip case, is found to be remarkably insensitive to the wall treatment. These results suggest that the no-slip condition is not necessary for vorticity generation or periodic shedding. However, it may still be required for accurate quantitative prediction of the integral flow quantities and shedding dynamics.

Assessment of Numerical Lift Coefficient Data for a Circular Cylinder with Application to Bladeless Turbines
L. Ridgway Scott, Henry von Wahl
arXiv1 Sep 2026PreprintarXiv licenceFull textNumerical analysis & scientific computing Computational physicsarXiv
Flow and Heat Transfer Characteristics of Forced Convection Past an Isoflux Circular Cylinder in Galinstan for Reynolds Numbers up to 600
Dipjyoti Nath
arXiv9 Sep 2026PreprintCC BY 4.0Full textNumerical analysis & scientific computing Fluid dynamicsarXiv
Rotation-driven suppression and re-emergence of unsteady flow past a circular cylinder
Aditi Sengupta, Sanjeev Kumar, Puneet Kumar
arXiv27 Oct 2026PreprintCC BY 4.0Full textFluid dynamicsarXiv
Effect of Porous Coating on the Water-Exit Dynamics of a Circular Cylinder
Intesaaf Ashraf, Mahender Thotakuri, Neetu Tiwari +1
arXiv26 Sep 2026PreprintCC BY 4.0Full textFluid dynamicsarXiv
Necessary conditions for benchmarking next-generation AI in materials discovery
Daniel E Widdowson, Tatiana V Kurlina, Olga D Anosova +1
arXiv9 Oct 2026PreprintCC BY-NC-ND 4.0Full textGeometry & topology Condensed matterarXiv

Cite

BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@misc{ghalejooghi2026noslip,
  title = {{Is No-Slip Necessary for Vorticity Generation and Shedding over a Circular Cylinder?}},
  author = {Kourosh Jafari Ghalejooghi and Haithem E. Taha},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.00531},
  eprint = {2609.00531},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.00531},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}

RIS

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Is No-Slip Necessary for Vorticity Generation and Shedding over a Circular Cylinder?
AU  - Kourosh Jafari Ghalejooghi
AU  - Haithem E. Taha
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/01
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.00531
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.00531
AB  - It is traditionally believed that the no-slip boundary condition is necessary for vorticity generation, as might be implied by the Lighthill vorticity generation mechanism. However, the investigations of Morton (1984) and Terrington et al. (2020) assert that the vorticity-generation mechanism is independent of the no-slip boundary condition. To investigate this hypothesis, we simulate viscous flow over a circular cylinder in the laminar periodic von Kármán vortex-shedding regime at Re = 170, without enforcing the no-slip condition at the wall. Instead, we close the wall tangential velocity and its normal derivative using one-sided finite-difference approximations. Accordingly, the wall tangential velocity is dynamically determined from the evolving interior solution rather than prescribed. The resulting flows exhibit qualitatively similar patterns of periodic vortex shedding across all three wall treatments (no-slip, second- and third-order one-sided approximations), although the mean drag coefficient, r.m.s. lift coefficient, and Strouhal number differ from those of the standard no-slip simulation. More significantly, the velocity distributions just outside the boundary layer closely match those of the standard no-slip simulation, regardless of the approximation order. In particular, the circulation evaluated along a contour at the edge of the boundary layer, which corresponds to the total vorticity contained within the layer in the no-slip case, is found to be remarkably insensitive to the wall treatment. These results suggest that the no-slip condition is not necessary for vorticity generation or periodic shedding. However, it may still be required for accurate quantitative prediction of the integral flow quantities and shedding dynamics.
ER  -

Abstract

Related

Cite