Symmetry of the flow around a circular cylinder (Q1088528)

The symmetry of the two-dimensional, viscous, incompressible flow past a circular cylinder is studied by disturbing impulsively the steady flow at Reynolds number 10, 20, 40, and 100. The propagation of this disturbance is studied by dividing the stream and vorticity functions. The steady stream and vorticity functions are expanded in the finite Fourier sine series. The steady semianalytical solutions are obtained for the symmetrical flow as a limit of the time-dependent equations. The perturbed stream and vorticity functions are expanded in the finite Fourier sine and cosine series and then along with the steady stream and vorticity functions expansions substituted in the Navier-Stokes equations. This leads to a system of coupled parabolic partial differential equations in the coefficient functions of Fourier series which is solved numerically.