Rotation-driven suppression and re-emergence of unsteady flow past a circular cylinder
Abstract
The flow past a rotating cylinder undergoes substantial changes in its wake dynamics and aerodynamic response with increasing rotation rate. This study investigates these changes in two-dimensional compressible flow at Re∞=3800 and M∞=0.1, with the rotation rate systematically varied over 0.1≤Ω≤10 using 130 high-fidelity simulations. At low rotation rates, conventional periodic vortex shedding is progressively suppressed with increasing rotation. A narrow transition regime around Ω=2.2−2.8 is identified, where sustained oscillations evolve into intermittent fluctuations before reaching a nearly quiescent state. At higher rotation rates, unsteadiness re-emerges with distinctly intermittent and multiscale characteristics, demonstrating that this instability is fundamentally different from conventional Kármán shedding. The surface pressure and streamwise skin-friction distributions reveal substantial redistribution of aerodynamic loading with rotation, characterized by increasingly intense suction and significant modification of the near-wall shear field. The maximum lift increases systematically with rotation, reflecting the strengthening Magnus-Robins effect, whereas drag exhibits a non-monotonic response with enhanced variability at high rotation rates. Despite the low free-stream Mach number, rotational acceleration produces local Mach numbers approaching 0.5, indicating appreciable compressibility effects in the near-cylinder region. Vorticity-based proper orthogonal decomposition further reveals a transition from wake-dominated coherent structures at low rotation to strongly wrapped, rotation-dominated structures at high rotation. These results establish a direct connection between rotational forcing, surface loading, compressibility, and the suppression and subsequent re-emergence of flow unsteadiness.
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BibTeX
@misc{sengupta2026rotationdriven,
title = {{Rotation-driven suppression and re-emergence of unsteady flow past a circular cylinder}},
author = {Aditi Sengupta and Sanjeev Kumar and Puneet Kumar},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.36556},
eprint = {2610.36556},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.36556},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Rotation-driven suppression and re-emergence of unsteady flow past a circular cylinder
AU - Aditi Sengupta
AU - Sanjeev Kumar
AU - Puneet Kumar
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/27
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.36556
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.36556
AB - The flow past a rotating cylinder undergoes substantial changes in its wake dynamics and aerodynamic response with increasing rotation rate. This study investigates these changes in two-dimensional compressible flow at Re_∞=3800 and M_∞=0.1, with the rotation rate systematically varied over 0.1≤Ω≤10 using 130 high-fidelity simulations. At low rotation rates, conventional periodic vortex shedding is progressively suppressed with increasing rotation. A narrow transition regime around Ω=2.2−2.8 is identified, where sustained oscillations evolve into intermittent fluctuations before reaching a nearly quiescent state. At higher rotation rates, unsteadiness re-emerges with distinctly intermittent and multiscale characteristics, demonstrating that this instability is fundamentally different from conventional Kármán shedding. The surface pressure and streamwise skin-friction distributions reveal substantial redistribution of aerodynamic loading with rotation, characterized by increasingly intense suction and significant modification of the near-wall shear field. The maximum lift increases systematically with rotation, reflecting the strengthening Magnus-Robins effect, whereas drag exhibits a non-monotonic response with enhanced variability at high rotation rates. Despite the low free-stream Mach number, rotational acceleration produces local Mach numbers approaching 0.5, indicating appreciable compressibility effects in the near-cylinder region. Vorticity-based proper orthogonal decomposition further reveals a transition from wake-dominated coherent structures at low rotation to strongly wrapped, rotation-dominated structures at high rotation. These results establish a direct connection between rotational forcing, surface loading, compressibility, and the suppression and subsequent re-emergence of flow unsteadiness.
ER -