Three-dimensional direct numerical simulations of two interfering side-by-side circular cylinders at intermediate spacing ratios

Side-by-side arranged circular cylinders show fierce interferences when they are not far apart. In this paper, we present the vibration response and wake characteristics of two elastically mounted circular cylinders in a side-by-side arrangement through three-dimensional direct numerical simulations (3-D DNS). The Reynolds number is Re = 500 and two center-to-center spacings (s) of 2.0D and 2.5D are considered where D is the diameter of the two cylinders. We found that with the increasing reduced velocity, the responses of both s/D cases can be divided into three different regions, which are named desynchronization region (DS), initial branch (IB), and lower branch (LB), with the former being further divided into two subregions (DS-I and DS-II). The vibration, hydrodynamic forces, and spectral features in each region are discussed in detail. According to the characteristics of cylinder oscillation and vortex dynamics, six types of wake patterns are identified, with the deflected (DF) and flip-flopping (FF) patterns at s/D = 2.0 while in-phase (IP), anti-phase (AP), in-/anti-phase (I/AP), and hybrid (HB) patterns at both s/D = 2.0 and 2.5. Furthermore, we investigated the wake three-dimensionality through the evolution of vortical structures, and the statistics and development of the enstrophies. It was observed that the presence of the streamwise vortices modifies the strength and spanwise coherence of the spanwise vortices. Finally, flow physics for the interactions of the two cylinders at different regions is elucidated.