On the force fluctuations acting on a circular cylinder in crossflow from subcritical up to transcritical Reynolds numbers

Force measurements were conducted in a pressurized wind tunnel from subcritical up to transcritical Reynolds numbers 2.3 × 10 4 [les ] Re [les ] 7.1 × 10 6 without changing the experimental arrangement. The steady and unsteady forces were measured by means of a piezobalance, which features a high natural frequency, low interferences and a large dynamic range. In the critical Reynolds-number range, two discontinuous transitions were observed, which can be interpreted as bifurcations at two critical Reynolds numbers. In both cases, these transitions are accompanied by critical fluctuations, symmetry breaking (the occurrence of a steady lift) and hysteresis. In addition, both transitions were coupled with a drop of the C D value and a jump of the Strouhal number. Similar phenomena were observed in the upper transitional region between the super- and the transcritical Reynolds-number ranges. The transcritical range begins at about Re ≈ 5 × 10 6 , where a narrow-band spectrum is formed with Sr ( Re = 7.1 × 10 6 ) = 0.29.