Measurements of the vortex-shedding frequency behind a vertical rectangular prism and a vertical circular cylinder attached to a plane wall are correlated with the characteristics of the smooth-wall turbulent boundary layer in which they are immersed. Experimental data were collected to investigate the effects of (i) the aspect ratio of these bodies and (ii) the boundary-layer characteristics on the vortex-shedding frequency. The Strouhal number for the rectangular prism and the circular cylinder, defined by S = fcw/U0 and fcd/U0 respectively, was found to be expressed by a power function of the aspect ratio h/w (or h/d). Here fc is the vortex-shedding frequency, U0 is the free-stream velocity, h is the height, w is the width and d is the diameter. As the aspect ratio is reduced, the type of vortex shedding behind each of the two bodies was found to change from the Karman-type vortex to the arch-type vortex at the aspect ratio of 2·0 for the rectangular prism and 2·5 for the circular cylinder.

The frequency of vortex shedding from a circular cylinder in a uniform shear flow and the flow patterns around it were experimentally investigated. The Reynolds number Re, which was defined in terms of the cylinder diameter and the approaching velocity at its centre, ranged from 35 to 1500. The shear parameter, which is the transverse velocity gradient of the shear flow non-dimensionalized by the above two quantities, was varied from 0 to 0·25. The critical Reynolds number beyond which vortex shedding from the cylinder occurred was found to be higher than that for a uniform stream and increased approximately linearly with increasing shear parameter when it was larger than about 0·06. In the Reynolds-number range 43 < Re < 220, the vortex shedding disappeared for sufficiently large shear parameters. Moreover, in the Reynolds-number range 100 < Re < 1000, the Strouhal number increased as the shear parameter increased beyond about 0·1.

The discrete-vortex model is applied to simulate the separation bubble over a two- dimensional blunt flat plate with finite thickness and right-angled corners, which is aligned parallel to a uniform approaching stream. This flow situation is chosen because, unlike most previous applications of the model, the separation bubble is supposed to be strongly affected by a nearby solid surface. The major objective of this paper is to examine to what extent the discrete-vortex model is effective for such a flow. A simple procedure is employed to represent the effect of viscosity near the solid surface; in particular, the no-slip condition on the solid surface. A reduction in the circulation of elemental vortices is introduced as a function of their ages in order to represent the three-dimensional deformation of vortex filaments, An experiment was also performed for comparison purposes.The calculation yielded reasonable predictions of the time-mean and r.m.s. values of the velocity and the surface-pressure fluctuations, together with correlations between their fluctuating components, over most of the separation bubble. The interrelation between instantaneous spatial variations of the surface-pressure and velocity fluctuations were also obtained. A comparison between the calculated and measured results suggests that, in the real flow, the three-dimensional deformation of vortex filaments will become more and more dominant as the reattachment point is approached.

The fluctuating pressures on the surface of two circular cylinders of the same diameter in tandem arrangement were measured in the upper subcritical regime to obtain the distributions of their rms values and the spanwise and circumferential correlations. These pressures were subsequently integrated to yield the spanwise correlation length and the rms values of fluctuating lift and drag as functions of the spacing between the two cylinders. The rms lift and drag were much larger for the downstream cylinder than for the upstream cylinder up to the spacing of 7.0 diameters. At the spacing of 10.0 diameters, they were different from those for a single cylinder by only a small amount.

The frequency of vortex shedding from two circular cylinders of the same diameter in staggered arrangement is experimentally investigated at a Reynolds number of 1.58 × 104. This Reynolds number is within the range where the flow around a circular cylinder is relatively insensitive to Reynolds number changes. The results are summarized in several figures from which one can obtain the Strouhal number of vortex shedding for all arrangements within distances between their centers less than 5 diameters.