Aerospace Science and Technology 53 (2016) 85–94

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Aerospace Science and Technology

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Aerodynamic sound from a square cylinder with a downstream wedge

Siti Ruhliah Lizarose Samion a,∗ , Mohamed Sukri Mat Ali a , Aminudin Abu a , Con
J. Doolan b , Ric Zong-Yang Porteous c
a
Malaysia–Japan International Institute of Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 54100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
b
School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052, Australia
c
School of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Adelaide, South Australia, 5005, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The effect of placing a wedge in the wake of a square cylinder (side length D) at a Reynolds number of
Received 21 September 2015 22,000 is numerically investigated. In particular, the effect of the wedge on aerodynamic noise is observed
Received in revised form 8 March 2016 along with its effect on the flow field. Wedge base height (h) and its gap distance (G) downstream of
Accepted 10 March 2016
the cylinder are systematically varied. Flow simulations are carried out using an unsteady RANS model
Available online 21 March 2016
employing the k–ω SST turbulence model, whereas the calculation of aerodynamic noise radiated from
Keywords: the flow is solved using Curle’s equation. A special correction technique is applied to consider spanwise
Bluff body effects on noise production and validation is provided using new aeroacoustic data for a square cylinder
Passive flow control in cross-flow. It is found that the flow behavior can be divided into two main regimes (regime I and
Passive sound control regime II), with a linking transition regime. For regime I, the generated sound is lower than that of the
High Reynolds number isolated square cylinder case. The thinnest wedge produced the best sound reduction (11.79 dB) when
the wedge is placed at G = 2D. For regime II, the calculated sound level is higher than the case of
an isolated square cylinder. This is because the sound emitted from both bodies have about the same
magnitude and are in phase. For this case, the maximum increase of sound pressure is 6.24 dB, when
the medium wedge is at G = 2.5D.
© 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Bluff bodies create flow separation over a significant part of
their surfaces in their wakes. For a fixed flow condition, the aero-
dynamic forces are mainly influenced by the geometry of the
bluff bodies [3–5]. This is due to the different flow structures,
even though the vortex generation process is topologically similar.
Therefore, different types of geometry of bluff bodies can create
different kinds of sound [6]. However, published flow noise data
are mostly focused on circular cylinders [7–9] and there are very
few reported investigations of aerodynamic sound from square
cylinders [17]. The study of aerodynamic sound from a square
cylinder is of interest as the flow separation is fixed and gives dif-
ferent flow behavior than that of the circular cylinder.
Bearman [10] and Lyn et al. [11] are among the few experi-
mental studies concerning the wake and surface pressures on a
rectangular cylinder. Other investigations of flow over rectangular
cylinder have focused on the effect of the aspect ratio on the vor-
tex shedding pattern. Nakaguchi et al. [12], Norberg [13] and Ohya
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: lializarose@gmail.com (S.R.L. Samion).
[14] are among the experimental studies, while Okajima [15], Shi-
mada and Ishihara [16] are numerical studies; each investigated
the flow over a rectangular cylinder with different aspect ratios.
However, these investigations are limited to the flow field and did
not examine aerodynamic sound.
Furthermore, almost all practical applications occur at high
Reynolds number, but very few investigations of aerodynamic
sound are performed at high Reynolds number. In bluff body flow
problems, a Reynolds number of 22,000 is commonly taken as rep-
resentative of a high Reynolds number. For example, Sohankar [17]
studies the flow over a square cylinder with moderate to high
Reynolds numbers ranging from 1 × 103 to 5 × 106 and classi-
fies Re > 20,000 as a high Reynolds number. For a fixed geometry,
a change in Reynolds number can affect the vortex shedding fre-
quency and wake.
Concerning aerodynamic sound for a square cylinder in cross
flow, there are very limited validation data for the case of high
Reynolds numbers. Fujita et al. [18] have investigated the sound
generated by flow over a square cylinder when the angle of at-
tack is altered at a fixed Re = 1.3 × 104 . Nakato et al. [19] is the
sole previous investigation of the aerodynamic sound generated by
flow around a rectangular cylinder at a range of high Reynolds

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ast.2016.03.007
1270-9638/© 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
86 S.R.L. Samion et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 53 (2016) 85–94
Nomenclature
D diameter of square cylinder [m]
f frequency [Hz]
h height of wedge [m]
Lr length of reattachment [m]
Re Reynolds number
St Strouhal number
u velocity [m/s]
x streamwise coordinate
number, i.e. Re = 6.4 × 103 to 2.3 × 104 . Margnat [20] numerically
investigated the flow and noise created by rectangular cylinders
at incidence but at low Reynolds number. Rokugou et al. [21] in-
vestigated the relationship between force fluctuations of a square
cylinder at high Reynolds number with the aerodynamic sound
generation.
There are also previous studies that consider the spanwise
length effect on the production of aerodynamic noise. Seo and
Moon [22] develop a correction that allows the prediction of noise
from long-span bodies using the numerical simulation of only a
small span-wise portions of the body. Casalino and Jacob [23]
use an ad-hoc statistical model to account for random phase dif-
ferences along the span of cylinders with turbulent wakes. Also,
Doolan [24] predicts spanwise-corrected noise using a statistical
treatment on the sound source itself.
Passive flow control is an attractive method to control aero-
dynamic sound [25]. The use of a downstream object, placed in
the wake of the upstream body, is one technique that can af-
fect the aerodynamic sound level. A critical study by Leclercq and
Doolan [26] on the vortex–wake interaction of two-tandem rect-
angular blocks finds that the unsteady force amplitude and phase
differences can either reinforce or cancel noise in the far-field.
Another type of geometry (for the downstream, secondary body)
that has been studied is the thin flat plate, either detached or
attached (as a splitter plate) to the base of the upstream body.
You et al. [27] studied the effect of splitter plate length on the
sound radiation for a circular cylinder at low Reynolds number
(Re = 100). Ali et al. [28,29] then adopt the splitter plate for the
case of square cylinder at Re = 150. Shear layer reattachment was
found to significantly alter sound generation. The sound cancel-
lation mechanism was also investigated by Ali et al. [30] at low
Reynolds number (Re = 150). They found that there were two dis-
tinct regimes of sound generation. In regime I, a sound reduction
of 2.3 dB is achieved when the gap distance of plate is G = 0.
While in regime II, as the plate length is altered to 0.26D and
placed at location where plate lift is out-of-phase with the cylinder
lift (5.6D), a significant reduction of 6.3 dB was obtained. How-
ever, due to differences in the acoustical waveforms generated by
the cylinder and plate, the maximum amount sound reduction is
limited. These differences are due to the non-linear fluid dynam-
ics experienced by the plate inserted in the cylinder wake. Hence,
there is an opportunity to investigate new downstream body ge-
ometries that may improve the sound cancellation effect observed
in previous seminal research reviewed above.
There are some evidences that different downstream geome-
tries may be effective for passive noise control. A study by Uffin-
ger et al. [31] correlated the flow and sound fields from square
cylinders with wedge or elliptical bodies placed in their wake.
A square cylinder with a wedge in its wake shows a 4.5 dB lower
sound pressure level when compared with a downstream elliptical
body. No significant parameters such as the gap distance between
bodies were investigated in this study, leaving these particular as-
pects unexplored. Cheng et al. [32] also studied the effect of down-
y vertical coordinate
λ sound pressure wavelength [m]
streamwise direction index
i
j vertical direction index
0 initial value according to ambient pressure
rms root-mean-squared value
mean time-averaged value
stream body shape on the wake of a square cylinder. For the case
of a wedge, the separated shear layers were able to approach each
other and interact more rapidly than without the wedge. However,
no investigation on the sound generation was presented.
Prasath et al. [33] presented a complete explanation of the
flow physics of a single wedge with different aspect ratios (AR =
Length/Height) and orientations with respect to the flow. Due to
the direct impact of eddies on the surface of base-facing wedge,
the lift coefficients of the wedge with its base facing the flow was
much higher compared with a wedge with its apex facing the flow.
Also, as AR increases, a delay in the onset of vortex shedding was
observed, especially for the case when the base faced the flow. If
seen from the perspective of vortex shedding frequency, Iungo et
al. [34] found that the vortex shedding frequency increases upon
decreasing AR of the wedge.
From the review, AR and gap distance may alter the flow struc-
tures in the wake, which may also affect noise generation. There-
fore, it is desirable to extend previous work on passive sound
control using a downstream wedge as a passive control device, so
that it can contribute to more complete understanding and even-
tual practical solution to industrial noise problems.
The current study has two objectives. First, to investigate the
applicability of 2D Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes
(URANS) to study noise from square cylinder in high Reynolds
number (i.e. Re = 22,000). Second, to investigate the use of a
downstream wedge as a passive noise control device in more de-
tail than has been previously reported upon. This paper presents a
procedure to predict noise from two-dimensional bluff bodies us-
ing a URANS flow solver and an acoustic analogy based on Curle’s
theory. The methodology is validated against new experimental
data obtained for the case of a single square cylinder in cross flow.
Then the numerical methodology is used to investigate the effect
of a downstream wedge on noise production.
2. Numerical procedure
The aerodynamic noise calculation starts with simulating a low
Mach number (Ma = 0.09) turbulent flow using an incompressible
URANS method. Using this flow simulation, the sound source (in
this case the time gradient of the lift force) is obtained. Then, after
the source is obtained, the sound propagation is then calculated
using Curle’s equation. Later, a spanwise correction is used to fur-
ther improve the accuracy of the noise prediction by considering
the spanwise effects of the flow field.
2.1. Flow simulations
The governing equations for flow are given by
∂ ui
=0 (1)
∂ xi
∂ ui 1 ∂p ∂ 2ui ∂  
=− +ν − u i u j − u i u j (2)
∂t ρ ∂ xi ∂x j∂x j ∂xj
 S.R.L. Samion et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 53 (2016) 85–94 87

where subscripts i , j = 1, 2. Here x1 and x2 denote streamwise Only the small deviation between the lines in the upstream di-
and cross-stream directions, respectively, and u 1 and u 2 are the rection is due to the Doppler effect and is not taken into account
corresponding time-averaged velocity components; u i depicts the in the current study as the Mach number for the current study is
fluctuating part of the velocity; ρ is the density of fluid and p small (Ma = 0.09).
represents the fluid pressure; u i u j is the Reynolds stress term. The
k–ω SST model (Wilcox [35]) is used to provide closure to the sys- 3. Experimental method
tem of equations formed by Reynolds averaging. The open source
computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code OpenFOAM is used for For the experimental validation, a square cross-sectioned cylin-
simulating the fluid. The temporal term is discretized using second der with a diameter of 10 mm was tested in an anechoic wind
order backward scheme and the convection term is discretized us- tunnel at the University of Adelaide. The tunnel has internal di-
ing second order QUICK scheme. mensions of 1.4 m × 1.4 m × 1.6 m. The facility contains a rect-
angular contraction outlet with a height of 75 mm and a width of
2.2. Acoustic simulations 275 mm. The wind tunnel walls are lined with foam wedges which
provide an anechoic environment above 300 Hz. The schematic di-
The sound propagation is governed by the equations from the agram of the experimental setup is provided in Fig. 1.
Lighthill acoustic analogy [2] The cylinder had a span of 400 mm (so that it spanned the
  entire width of the contraction) and was mounted 30 mm from
∂2 2 2 ∂2Tij
2
− c 0 ∇ (ρ − ρ0 ) = (x, t ) (3) the exit plane of the nozzle. The mounting plate was the same
∂t ∂ xi ∂ x j that was used by Moreau et al. [37]. The cylinder was mounted
T i j = ρ u i u j − τi j + δi j (( p − p 0 ) − c 02 (ρ − ρ0 )) (4) in such a manner so that the ends were located in a zero velocity
environment. For the experiment, the free-stream velocity of the
Equation (3) is an inhomogenous wave equation derived from re- jet was set at 32 m/s.
arrangement of Navier–Stokes equations [2]. T i j is Lighthill’s stress A single B&K 4190 microphone was used to measure the flow-
tensor, where the first term at the right hand side of Eq. (4) induced noise. The microphone’s frequency range is ±1 dB be-
(ρ u i u j ) is the Reynolds stress tensor; τi j denotes viscous stress, tween 50–20000 Hz as stated in the transducer documentation.
δi j is Kronecker delta, ρ and p are the instantaneous density and The microphone was located 0.5 m from the cylinder axis at a
pressure, respectively. Subscript ‘0’ represents reference value of 90 degree angle to the flow direction directly above the cylinder.
the parameter. The ambient pressure is the reference value in the The acoustic pressure was sampled at 21 6 Hz for 10 seconds us-
current study. ing a DAQ with an automatic anti-aliasing filter. The microphone
In the current study, considering a compact body present in records were not adjusted for interference from the shear layer.
the flow (i.e. the square cylinder), the free-field Green’s function
is used to solve Lighthill’s equations. This method is introduced by 4. Validation test case
Curle and explained in Curle’s theory [1].
As the dimension of the body is very small compared to the
A single square cylinder of diameter D in cross flow is used
wavelength (ratio of wavelength to body dimension is 88.2), the
as a validation test case, of which the numerical prediction of the
sound source are assumed compact. In the case of a compact, fixed,
emitted sound is compared with the experimental measurement.
and rigid body, emission time variation along the body can be ne-
The computational domain size is 31.5D × 21D and the coordi-
glected. Hence, r ≈ |x|. Therefore, taking P i j as pressure, y as the
nate origin is at the center of the square cylinder (see Fig. 2).
point on the rigid surface, and instantaneous force F i of fluid on
The upstream, top, and bottom boundaries are 10D away from
the body (i.e. lift and drag) as
cylinder. The boundary conditions are as shown in Fig. 2. The in-

let boundaries are constant velocity boundary conditions set to
F i (tr ) ≈ [ P i j ]τ =tr n j dS( y ) (5) the free-stream value (Dirichlet BC), with a zero pressure gradi-
S ent (Neumann BC) conditions also applied. The outlet boundary
the Curle’s solution for a fixed rigid compact body is has a zero velocity gradient and a fixed pressure value. A uniform
 structured mesh is made surrounding the cylinder until 1D from
1 xi x j the surface of square cylinder, where the mesh is highly refined.
c 02 [
ρ (x, t ) − ρ0 ] = T i j (y, t − r /c 0 ) dV( y )
4π r 2 rc 02 This type of mesh is adapted from the grid convergence study of
V Ali et al. [38] for the case of square cylinder. Fig. 3 shows the mesh
1 xj ∂ adopted in current study.
− F j (t − r /c 0 ) (6) A grid refinement study assessing three levels of mesh density
4π r 2 c 03 ∂ t
was performed and the results are compared with similar previous
Hence, the radiated sound is obtained by a quadrupolar volume in- studies. Table 1 shows the description of the cells with compari-
tegration and a dipolar surface integration. Inoue and Hatakeyama son to previous information from the literature. Here, y w / D refers
[36] showed that the magnitude of sound pressure can be roughly to the unit mesh size in the buffer zone near the surface (the
estimated as p q /ρ U ∞
2
∝ AMa7/2 /r 1/2 and pd /ρ U ∞
2
∝ Ma5/2 /r 1/2 , smallest cell size). The values of y + are also taken into account to
where subscripts ‘q’ and ‘d’ are for quadrupole and dipole, re- investigate about the best grid for the simulation. y + denotes non-
spectively, and A is a constant. Hence, as the quadrupole sound dimensionalized distance of grid points from the cylinder wall and
is small compared to the dipole sound, it is neglected in this is defined as y + = u τ y /ν , where u τ is the friction velocity, and y
study. This leaves the following as solution to calculate the radi- is the distance from the body wall [35]. y + min
and y +max are values of
ated sound. the smallest and the biggest y + value respectively, while the aver-
    age value of y + is shown in the last column. Murakami et al. [39]
1 ∂ Fi 1 xi ∂ Fi
p  (x, t ) = − = (7) and Arslan et al. [40] performed LES simulations of a rectangular
4π ∂ x i r 4π c 0 r 2 ∂t
cylinder at similar high Reynolds number flow and are compared
Good agreement is found between the calculations using Curle’s in Table 1. The fine mesh has similar levels of refinement to the
solution with the DNS results as has been proved by Ali et al. [28]. previously published LES studies.
88 S.R.L. Samion et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 53 (2016) 85–94

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the experimental setup.

Table 1
Computational meshed used in this study, compared with those in the literature.

Case No. of cells y w /D y+

min
y+
max y+
average

Coarse 158 × 120 0.0500 9.50 67.86 31.56

Medium 211 × 165 0.0285 4.85 38.58 17.36
Fine 353 × 306 0.0200 2.78 24.17 11.26
Murakami et al. [39] 104 × 69 0.022 ( y + ≤ 11.81)
Arslan et al. [40] 1 × 106 0.025 101

on the calculation using Eq. (7), the root mean square value of
sound pressure, P rms for numerical simulation is 8.85 × 10−5 Pa,
i.e. 12.9 dB when measured at R = 50D, θ = 90◦ above the cylin-
der. Sound pressure level (SPL) is calculated using Eq. (8) in which
the P ref is taken as 2 × 10−5 [Pa].

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of computational domain and the boundary conditions
applied.
Numerical data used for calculating global, averaged results are
taken when the solution has reached a statistically stable state.
This was done by taking data from the non-dimensional time
tU / D = 150 for at least 10 vortex shedding cycles. Table 2 shows
comparison of global results obtained using the fine grid with
other previous studies. Almost identical results are obtained. Thus
the fine mesh density (353 × 306) is used for the results presented
here.
The sound calculated is compared with the experimental re-
sults obtained in the anechoic wind tunnel. The results show that
the sound radiated due to the drag is small and the dominant
sound source is due to the lift fluctuations, a similar finding by
Ali et al. [28]. Therefore, only the sound source due to the un-
steady lift force is considered in this study. The location to measure
the sound is chosen to be at R = 50D, θ = 90◦ from the cen-
ter of the square cylinder, the same as that of experiment. Based
P rms
SPL = 20 log( ) (8)
P ref
The simulation acoustic result is validated by comparing it with
that of experiment’s. Following the spanwise correction technique
as has been suggested by Seo and Moon [22] and Doolan [24], the
acoustic power spectral density (PSD) of the current results is used
for comparison. To calculate the value to be corrected to the sound
pressure level (SPL) of the simulation, the following Eq. (9) is used.
√
SPLc = 10 log( L c / L s ) + 10 log( π N) (9)
Here, L c represents the spanwise coherence length, L s denotes
the simulated span length as defined as L s = L / N, in which con-
sidering a long-span body with length L divided into N subsec-
tions. Since the vortex shedding in flow over circular cylinder at
Re = 22,000 is correlated over a distance of about 6.5D, the value
of L c in current study is taken as 5D, following the procedure used
by Doolan [24] and Casalino and Jacob [23]; here, N = 10 giving
L s = 2.75D. The numerical and experimental acoustic power spec-
tral densities are compared in Fig. 4. The simulated PSD is able to
 S.R.L. Samion et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 53 (2016) 85–94 89

Fig. 3. Mesh of the computational domain.

Table 2
Comparison of global results of the current study with the literature.

No Author Method Re C D ,mean C L ,rms St

1 Present (Fine) k–ω SST 22,000 2.10 1.43 0.126
2 Tian et al. [41] k–ω SST 21,400 2.06 1.492 0.138
3 Bosch and Rodi [47] k–ε 22,000 2.108 1.012 0.146
4 Lyn [11] LDV Exp. 21,400 2. 1 – 0.13
5 Bearman [10] – 22,000 2.1 1.2 0.13
6 Shimada and Ishihara [16] k–ε 22,000 2.05 1.43 0.141
7 Murakami and Mochida [39] 3D LES 22,000 2.09 1.60 0.132
8 Arslan et al. [40] 3D LES 22,000 2.25 1.43 0.127

Fig. 5. Problem geometry for the case of a downstream wedge. The parameters that
are varied are height, h and gap distance, G.

Fig. 4. Comparison of computed and experimental acoustic power spectral densities.

Experimental results (black solid line) are compared with the corrected numerical
calculation results (blue dotted line). (For interpretation of the references to color
in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

reasonably reproduce the Aeolian tone frequency and magnitude.

The broadband levels at higher frequency are not well predicted
and this may be due to the URANS methodology not able to rep-
resent smaller eddies in the near wake as well as a breakdown in
Fig. 6. Root-mean-square sound pressure for various gap distances for all three cases
the assumption of acoustic compactness. As this study is concerned
compared with the isolated square cylinder.
with the flow and noise at the Aeolian tone only, the methodology
is considered sufficiently accurate to proceed with a fundamental
h = 1D (thick wedge), h = 0.5D (medium wedge) and h = 0.25D
investigation of passive flow and noise control using a downstream
(thin wedge) known here as Case 1, Case 2 and Case 3, respec-
wedge.
tively. The gap distance is varied 0 ≤ G ≤ 7D so that the sensitivity
of the gap distance with the flow and noise generation can be in-
5. Investigation of the effect of a downstream wedge
vestigated.

5.1. Test case description 5.2. Summary of flow regimes and sound generation

The effect of gap distances in the downstream (G) and wedge
height (h) are the important factors relating to the sound gener-
ation being investigated in this study. Fig. 5 shows the problem
geometry. Three types of wedge height (h) were used in this study;
Fig. 6 shows the variations of root-mean-square sound pressure
(p rms /ρ U ∞
2
) at different gap distances. It is found there are two
types of regimes (regime I and regime II) present in the change of
sound with gap distance. There is also a small transition regime
90 S.R.L. Samion et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 53 (2016) 85–94
Fig. 7. Sound source, ∂∂Ft 2 for each test case.
between regimes I and II. The classification of regime is based on
the flow behavior properties and flow patterns.
Regime I shows a significant sound reduction compared with
the isolated square cylinder. The highest reduction is achieved
when the wedge is h = 0.25D at G = 2D i.e. 11.79 dB. On the
other hand, in regime II, the magnitude of sound at first exceeds,
but returning to the vicinity of sound magnitude of that of sin-
gle square cylinder case when approaching G = 6D. There is also
sound reduction obtained in regime II cases but at the gap distance
G ≥ 6D.
The two regimes are due to the effect of the wedge which has
altered the sound generation mechanism [28]. The sound source
(i.e. the time gradient of the lift, ∂∂Ft2 ) for both the square cylin-
der and the wedge are shown in Fig. 7. It is observed that there
is an extreme difference of root-mean-square of lift gradient be-
tween that in regime I and regime II, for both the square cylin-
der and the wedge. The downstream flow structures are governed
by the gap distance between the square cylinder and the wedge.
Time-averaged streamlines shown in Fig. 8 illustrate the differ-
ent regimes observed. In regime I, the saddle point is found be-
hind the wedge. This happens when the separated shear layer
from the square cylinder reattaches behind the wedge and a re-
circulation region is formed in the wake of the wedge. In regime
I, the square cylinder and wedge experience reduced magnitude
of lift acting upon them. Hence, the sound source in regime I
shows reduced value leading to the reduced magnitude of root-
mean-square sound pressure. On the contrary in regime II, the
recirculation region forms within the gap, and shows the same
pattern with the case of single square cylinder. Therefore, the
sound source (gradient of lift force experienced by the square
Fig. 8. Streamline (time-averaged velocity) for case 3 at representative gap distances of different regimes. (a) Single square cylinder, (b) regime I, G = 0, (c) transition regime,
G = 2.26D, (d) regime II, G = 2.76D.
cylinder) returns to the vicinity of that of single square cylin-
der.
5.3. Lift
As flow past over a bluff body, shear layers from two sides of
the body are shed alternately downstream the body. When one
side sheds a shear layer, it will experience a low pressure and the
opposite side will experience a high pressure. Hence, the fluctuat-
ing forces are experienced by the bluff bodies (square cylinder and
wedge) are the result of the alternation of periodic pressure fluc-
tuations from both sides of the body. This unsteady force happens
at the frequency of the vortex shedding.
In regime I, the lift acting on the square cylinder and wedge
are sensitive to the gap distance as shown in Fig. 9. Especially
in medium and thin wedge case, there is a gradual reduction in
lift of square cylinder with gap distance, but the magnitude of
lift acting on the wedge increases. The same pattern was found
by Ali et al. [43]. This can be explained by the wake–wedge in-
teraction. As the wedge is placed nearer to the core of growing
vortex, the velocity fluctuations around the wedge intensify and
consequently the surface pressure fluctuations on wedge increase.
Thus, the lift acting on the wedge increases due to this wake–
wedge interaction. In regime II, the lift acting on square cylinder
is weakened before it slowly returns to its original value while
the lift acting on the wedge at first is approximately the same
magnitude as that of square cylinder but gradually decreases as
the gap distance increases. As the wedge is placed further from
the core of the growing vortex of the upstream body, the mag-
nitude of the velocity fluctuations reduce. Thus, at small gaps in
regime II, both the lift on the square (cylinder) and wedge de-
crease. However, as the wedge is placed further downstream, the
presence of the wedge has a diminished effect on the lift. There-
fore, the value returns to the value of C L ,rms of the isolated square.
The gradual changes of the lift on the wedge relate to the roll-up
of the shear layer from the square cylinder. This has more chance
to dissipate when the wedge is placed further downstream. Thus
the wedge is in the vicinity of a weaker vortex thus experienc-
ing a lower unsteady aerodynamic force. Furthermore, a thinner
wedge experiences lower lift than on the thicker wedge in regime
II. This relates with the increasing of vortex diffusion and the loss
of flow symmetry as the wedge becomes thinner. A similar pat-
tern found in Iungo et al. [44] where the lift acting on the body
is reduced when the aspect ratio (length/height) of the wedge is
higher.
 S.R.L. Samion et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 53 (2016) 85–94
Fig. 9. Root-mean-square lift coefficient for various gap distances for all test cases.
Fig. 10. Mean drag coefficient for various gap distances for all test cases.
5.4. Drag
The two regimes can also be defined by mean drag coefficient.
Generally, the magnitude of mean drag acting on the square cylin-
der and wedge decrease in regime I. When the wedge is placed in
regime I, the wake width and the vortex formation length increase,
resulting in lower drag.
In regime II, the magnitude of mean drag acting on square
cylinder increases and returns to the value of an isolated square
cylinder. The drag acting on the wedge also increases and stays
constant at a fixed value. When the wedge is placed in regime II,
the vortex formation length returns to the same length with that
of the isolated square cylinder, i.e. the development of the vor-
tex in the wake of square cylinder is no longer affected by the
presence of the wedge when it is placed further downstream in
regime II. Thus the mean drag acting on the square cylinder re-
turns the same as the drag acting on isolated square as can be
seen in Fig. 10. Also, the reattachment of the shear layers that oc-
curs within the gap has constrained the recirculation region. This
leads the base pressure magnitude experienced by the wedge to be
constant, so the drag acting on the wedge is constant. However, the
fixed magnitude of drag is lower for the thinner wedge. In Ganga
Prasath et al. [45] who studied the effect of aspect ratio of trian-
gular prism, it is found that the drag coefficient decreases with the
increase of aspect ratio (the triangular prism becomes longer) due
to the separated flow zone shrinking. This relates to current study;
when the wedge is thinner (aspect ratio increases), the drag acting
on the wedge itself is lower.
Generally in regime II, lift and drag acting on the square cylin-
der gradually return to their value the same as that of the isolated
square case. Different behavior is found for the wedge. Lift of the
wedge in regime II gradually decreases, while drag stay constant
at fixed value when the wedge is in regime II. This is because
91
as the wedge is placed far from the square cylinder, the wake–
wedge interaction becomes weak. Thin wedge cases show the low-
est drag value followed by medium wedge case when compared
to regime II. Thus it can be concluded that the thinner the wedge
gets, the lower the drag acting on the wedge.
5.5. Vortex shedding
Figs. 11(a), 12(a) and 13(a) show instantaneous vorticity con-
tours at a time when the lift is maximum for G = 0 for cases 1, 2
and 3 respectively. The vortex shedding pattern from square cylin-
der with wedge in regime I is the same as the vortex shedding of a
low Re case as has been found in Inoue et al. [36,42], Ali et al. [43]
and Doolan [46]. Figs. 11(b), 12(b) and 13(b) represent instanta-
neous vorticity contours in the transition regime for thick, medium
and thin wedge cases respectively. Transition regime flow depicts
both the characteristics of regime I and regime II. While, Fig. 11(c),
12(c) and 13(c) show instantaneous vorticity contours for regime II
for cases 1 to 3 respectively. Broadly, regime I is characterised by
vortex formation occurring behind the wedge, regime II is charac-
terised by vortex formation within the gap between the cylinder
and wedge, while the transition region is more complicated in
that there exists an unsteady flow region between the cylinder and
wedge, flow reattachment on the wedge that affects vortex shed-
ding in the wake.
The Strouhal number (St = f D /U , where f is vortex shedding
frequency) is presented in Fig. 14. The vortex shedding frequency is
obtained from power spectrum density of lift fluctuations. Almost
all cases have values of St lower than that of isolated square. This
is expected as the formation of the vortex has been disturbed by
the presence of the wedge.
5.6. Sound radiation
Figs. 15 to 17 show contours of sound pressure, (that is cal-
culated using Eq. (7)) for of regime I, the transition regime, and
regime II for thick, medium and thin wedge cases respectively.
Sound radiates in the direction of 90◦ from the free stream, in a
dipolar pattern, which is as expected as the source of noise is un-
steady lift. The estimated wavelength of an isolated square cylin-
der is λ ≈ D /(Ma × St ) ≈ 88.2D (St = 0.0113). In regime I, thick
wedge case generates a sound wave with a shorter wavelength
than the isolated square cylinder, i.e. λ ≈ 75.3D (St = 0.0133) for
G = 0. In the transition regime, the sound wavelength is λ ≈ 83.3D
(St = 0.012) and regime II the sound wavelength is λ ≈ 88.1D
(St = 0.0114) approaching that value of isolated square cylinder
case. For medium thin wedge case, the placement of the wedge
in regime I and the transition regime leads to an increase in the
acoustic wavelength. The medium wedge in regime I gives out
sound of wavelength of λ ≈ 107.1D (St = 0.0093), while in tran-
sition regime (G = 1.5D) the sound wavelength is λ ≈ 102.4D
(St = 0.0098). For thin wedge case, regime I has an acoustic wave-
length of λ ≈ 95.2D (St = 0.0105) and the transition regime, gen-
erates sound with a wavelength of approximately λ ≈ 107.1D (St =
0.0093). Both medium and thin wedges, for regime II, are found to
radiate the wavelength that approaches the value of the isolated
square cylinder. They radiate sound with a wavelength λ ≈ 83.3D
(St = 0.012) for both medium and thin wedge cases.
Fig. 18 shows the phase difference between the sound emitted
from the square cylinder and the sound emitted from the wedge
for various gap distances for all three cases. The phase lag becomes
linear once the gap distance is sufficient to establish vortex shed-
ding between the cylinder and the wedge (regime II). This linearity
can be explained by the nearly constant convection velocity of the
shed vortices from the upstream cylinder in regime II. In contrast,
the phase difference is non-linear in regime I and the transition
92 S.R.L. Samion et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 53 (2016) 85–94

Fig. 11. Instantaneous vorticity contours for thick wedge case (case 1) taken at time when lift is at maximum. Red-lines represent clockwise direction with contour level
ranging −10 ≤  D /U ∞ ≤ −0.3. Green lines represent anticlockwise direction with contour level ranging 0.3 ≤  D /U ∞ ≤ 10. : spanwise vorticity. (For interpretation of
the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Fig. 12. Instantaneous vorticity contours for medium wedge case (case 2) taken at a time when the lift is at maximum. Red-lines represent clockwise direction with contour
level ranging −10 ≤  D /U ∞ ≤ −0.3. Green lines represent anticlockwise direction with contour level ranging 0.3 ≤  D /U ∞ ≤ 10. : spanwise vorticity. (For interpretation
of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Fig. 13. Instantaneous vorticity contours for thin wedge case (case 3) taken at a time when the lift is at maximum. Red-lines represent clockwise direction with contour level
ranging −10 ≤  D /U ∞ ≤ −0.3. Green lines represent anticlockwise direction with contour level ranging 0.3 ≤  D /U ∞ ≤ 10. : spanwise vorticity. (For interpretation of
the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
Fig. 14. Strouhal number for various gap distances, for all test cases.
regime when constant vortex shedding has not been established
within the gap. The pattern is similar to the study of Ali et al. [30]
who investigated effect of placing a detached plate in the wake of
a square cylinder. Linearity relation for thick wedge case starts at
G = 1D, while medium wedge case starts at G = 3.5D and thin
wedge case starts at G = 2.5D.
6. Conclusion
This paper has presented a method for calculating the flow
and noise from bluff bodies at high Reynolds number using two-
dimensional URANS flow simulations and Curle’s acoustic anal-
ogy. The method was validated using new experimental data for
the test case of a single square cylinder in a cross flow with
Re = 22,000 and Ma = 0.09.
The validated methodology was then used to investigate the ef-
fect of a downstream, detached wedge as a form of passive flow
and noise control. It was found that the flow behavior can be di-
vided into two regimes based on the analysis done on the flow
properties and flow patterns. There is also the presence of a tran-
sition regime in which the flow behaves as if it is about to change
from regime I to regime II. Noise generated in regime I showed a
reduction in level compared with the single square cylinder. How-
ever, noise generated in regime II case showed an increase in the
sound level. The reduction on noise level is due to the reduction
 S.R.L. Samion et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 53 (2016) 85–94 93

Fig. 15. Case 1: Contours of sound pressure (p  /ρ U ∞

2
). Blue-lines represent positive signs. Red-dashed-lines represent negative signs. Contour levels are from 1.0 × 10−9 to
8.0 × 10−9 with constant increment of 1.0 × 10−10 . (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Fig. 16. Case 2: Contours of sound pressure (p  /ρ U ∞

2
). Blue-lines represent positive signs. Red-dashed-lines represent negative signs. Contour levels are from 1.0 × 10−9 to
8.0 × 10−9 with constant increment of 1.0 × 10−10 . (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Fig. 17. Case 3: Contours of sound pressure (p  /ρ U ∞

2
). Blue-lines represent positive signs. Red-dashed-lines represent negative signs. Contour levels are from 1.0 × 10−9 to
8.0 × 10−9 with constant increment of 1.0 × 10−10 . (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

and wedge causing an intense vortex–wedge interaction, causing

high levels of noise radiation. For the current test cases, it was
found that the wedge cannot completely cancel the sound created
by a square cylinder in high Reynolds number flow; however, mod-
ification of the shape and position of the downstream wedge may
allow a significant reduction of sound, if the phase and strength of
the noise source of the wedge can be controlled in such a man-
ner so that it can significantly cancel the noise generated by the
upstream cylinder.

Conflict of interest statement

Fig. 18. Sound phase lag for various gap distance in different cases.
The article is the authors’ original work, has not received prior
in aerodynamic forces on the cylinder and wedge in regime I. In publication and is not under consideration for publication else-
regime II, vortex shedding occurs in the gap between the cylinder where.
94 S.R.L. Samion et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 53 (2016) 85–94
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the use of the services and
facilities of the HPC-UTM at the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,
FRGS PY/2015/05383 and TWAS 13-272 research grants and MJIIT
fellowship award to the first author. Also, the support from the
University of Adelaide for the experimental results is gratefully ac-
knowledged.
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