Mechanical Engineering - Theses

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The form drag of two-dimensional bluff-plates immersed in turbulent shear flows

Good, Malcolm Campbell ( 1965)

The literature concerning bluff-body flows in two-dimensional, incompressible, sheared and unsheared streams is reviewed. It is found that no theory yet exists which can predict the form drag of a bluff body without some recourse to experimental data, even for the simple case of an isolated bluff-plate in an unsheared stream. In the present state of knowledge, and considering the complexity of turbulent shear flows, a theory for the form drag of bluff-plates immersed in turbulent boundary-layers seems remote. A correlation scheme is proposed to relate the form drag of a bluff-plate which is attached to a smooth-wall with the mean-flow characteristics of the naturally-developed, turbulent boundary-layer in which it is immersed. The investigation is limited to smooth-wall flows of the type described by Coles (1956). It is suggested that, for bluff-plates which are small compared with the boundary-layer thickness, the drag might depend only on the “wall variables”: wall shear-stress, fluid density and viscosity, and the plate height.