Abstract
A flow visualization experiment was performed in order to characterize the laminar horseshoe vortex system that appears upstream of the junction of a short cylinder and a pair of flat parallel plates. The experiments were performed in a water tunnel and the technique used for flow visualization was laser illumination of seeded particles whose traces were captured using long exposure photography. Geometrical and flow parameters, such as Reynolds number and height-to-diameter ratio of the cylinders, are varied during the experiments and the flow regimes are analyzed as a function of these parameters. The behavior of vortex systems is reported. For low Reynolds number cases, the vortices stay in a fixed position, as the Reynolds number is increased the number of vortices grows and for larger Reynolds numbers the vortex system becomes oscillatory and for further increases it becomes periodic. As for the dimensionless height of the cylinders, the vortex system is weak for short cylinders and increases its strength and number of vortices as the cylinder height-to-diameter ratio is increased. For further increases in height the vortex system do not change, which shows that the flow becomes independent of the height-to-diameter ratio for sufficiently tall cylinders. Information of the frequency of appearance of periodic vortices is also included.
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Marcos M. Rodríguez y Domínguez: He finished his B.S. Degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2004 from the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí. In 2005 he worked for the Centro de Investigación y Estudios Avanzados, in Querétaro, México, where he developed research projects in Material Science. His research interests are Flow Visualization, PIV, and Modeling of Materials Processing Operations.
Ricardo Romero-Méndez: He received his M.Sc. (Eng) in Mechanical Engineering in 1996 and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in 1998 from the University of Notre Dame. He works in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, México, since 1998. His research interests are Flow Visualization of Heat Exchanger Devices, Heat Transfer Enhancement, and Heat Induced Skin Treatments.
Mónica Ramos-Paláu: She obtained her B.S. Degree in Mechanical Engineering in July 2005 from the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí. Her research interests are Flow Visualization and Biomedical Engineering.
Francisco G. Pérez-Gutiérrez: He obtained his B.S. Degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2004 from the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí. He is now enrolled in the Doctoral Program in Mechanical Engineering of the University of California, Riverside. His research interests are Heat Induced Laser Treatments, Cryogen Cooling and Spray Deposition in Human Skin.
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Rodríguez y Domínguez, M., Romero-Méndez, R., Ramos-Paláu, M. et al. The laminar horseshoe vortex upstream of a short-cylinder confined in a channel formed by a pair of parallel plates. J Vis 9, 309–318 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03181678
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03181678