Numerical simulation of flow past a stationary and rotating sphere

Abstract

Numerical simulations of the laminar flow past a rotating sphere are considered for Reynolds numbers Re = 100 and 250, which for a stationary sphere covers the steady axisymmetric and steady planar-symmetric regimes. The non-dimensional rotation speeds Ω* = 0.05, 0.20, 0.50 and 1.00 are considered, where Ω* is the maximum surface velocity normalized by the freestream velocity. The rotation axis of the sphere is oriented at various angles, α, between the limits of steamwise rotation and transverse rotation. For each Reynolds number, the effects of Ω* and α on the instantaneous wake structure and the forces acting on the sphere are presented.