Effect of three-dimensionality on the lift and drag of nominally two-dimensional cylinders

It has been known for some time that two-dimensional numerical simulations of flow over nominally two-dimensional bluff bodies at Reynolds numbers for which the flow is intrinsically three dimensional, lead to inaccurate prediction of the lift and drag forces. In particular, for flow past a normal flat plate (International Symposium on Nonsteady Fluid Dynamics, edited by J. A. Miller and D. P. Telionis, 1990, pp. 455–464) and circular cylinders J. Wind Eng. Indus. Aerodyn. 35, 275 (1990), it has been noted that the drag coefficient computed from two-dimensional simulations is significantly higher than what is obtained from experiments. Furthermore, it has been found that three-dimensional simulations of flows lead to accurate prediction of drag J. Wind Eng. Indus. Aerodyn. 35, 275 (1990). The underlying cause for this discrepancy is that the surface pressure distribution obtained from two-dimensional simulations does not match up with that obtained from experiments and three-dimensional simulations and a number of reasons have been put forward to explain this discrepancy. However, the details of the physical mechanisms that ultimately lead to the inaccurate prediction of surface pressure and consequently the lift and drag, are still not clear. In the present study, results of two-dimensional and three-dimensional simulations of flow past elliptic and circular cylinders have been systematically compared in an effort to pinpoint the exact cause for the inaccurate prediction of the lift and drag by two-dimensional simulations. The overprediction of mean drag force in two-dimensional simulations is directly traced to higher Reynolds stresses in the wake. It is also found that the discrepancy in the drag between two-dimensional and three-dimensional simulations is more pronounced for bluffer cylinders. Finally, the current study also provides a detailed view of how the fluctuation, which are associated with the Kármán vortex shedding in the wake, affect the mean pressure distribution and the aerodynamic forces on the body.