Direct Numerical Simulation of the turbulent wake behind a heated cylinder

Direct Numerical Simulations were conducted to describe a well-known and widely studied configuration, i.e. flow field development downstream from a cylinder under the mixed convection regime, which has too rarely been considered. The Richardson number studied was equal to 2.77 and the Reynolds number equal to 1000; under such conditions, thermal instability development along the cylinder was found to interact with and pronouncedly disturb upper shear-layer development. Whole flow behavior in the back of the cylinder is consequently asymmetric. The resulting flow corresponds to complex features ranging from Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities to pure buoyant diffusion process and Von Karman alley, the latter being significantly deviated upward.