The interaction of a gravity current with a circular cylinder mounted above a wall: Effect of the gap size

The flow of a gravity current past a circular cylinder mounted above a bottom wall is studied by means of two-dimensional Navier–Stokes simulations. The investigation focuses on the effects of the gap size on the forces acting on the cylinder. The interaction of the current with the cylinder can be divided into an impact, a transient, and a quasisteady stage. During the impact stage, the gravity current meets the cylinder, and the drag increases towards a maximum, while the lift undergoes a drastic fluctuation which increases noticeably with the gap size. During the quasisteady stage, the flow past the cylinder resembles that observed in constant-density boundary layer flows past cylinders: Karman vortex shedding is observed for sufficiently large gap sizes, while a vorticity cancellation mechanism is responsible for the suppression of vortex shedding at small gap sizes. On the other hand, interesting differences that distinguish the gravity current case from the constant-density case are the presence in the gravity current flow of a component of the mean quasisteady lift due to buoyancy, and another component from the deflection of the wake towards the wall by the constriction of the dense fluid flow downstream of the cylinder, as well as the cancellation of vortex shedding for all gap sizes when the ratio of the channel depth to lock height is decreased from 5 to 1.