Experimental Study of the Characteristics of the Flow in the Near Wake of a Rectangular Cylinder

In this work, the characteristics of the near wake of a rectangular cylinder was investigated in a two-dimensional analysis, using hot-wire anemometer. The time-averaged and the fluctuating components of velocity were measured for the cylinder having various width-to-height ratios. The measurements were carried out in a low-speed wind tunnel. The results show that the wake turbulence intensity decreases, as the width-to-height ratio of the cylinder increases. Also, the characteristics of the flow field in different streamwise locations were evaluated. The spectral analysis of the signals was also carried out for two different Reynolds numbers. This showed that the strouhal number remains nearly constant in high Reynolds numbers. The results of our experiments were in close agreements with the most widely accepted results in the literature.