Effects of periodic suction-blowing excitation on the aerodynamic sound generated by a laminar flow past a square cylinder using the direct numerical simulation approach

This paper analyzes the effects of a periodic suction-blowing excitation on the aerodynamic sound generated by a laminar flow past a square cylinder using the direct numerical simulation approach. The periodic suction-blowing excitation has been prescribed on the top and bottom surfaces of the square cylinder. The proper orthogonal mode decomposition (POD) technique has been used to find information about important modes associated with disturbance pressure fields. The POD technique separated the contribution of the dominant lift dipole equivalent sources and the drag dipole equivalent sources to the disturbance pressure field for the no-excitation case. The POD technique also revealed that the periodic suction-blowing excitation introduced an additional monopole equivalent sound source and a drag dipole equivalent sound source due to periodic enhancement and reduction of the body’s effective cross-sectional area. Modifications in the sound field due to changes in excitation amplitude, forcing frequency, and the phase delay between the excitation and vortex shedding process have been studied in detail. Although no significant changes in the flow field were noticed due to a small amplitude of excitation, the directivity of the sound field was significantly altered. The sound fields have been classified into five distinct zones for different periodic suction-blowing excitation frequencies. The beats of sounds were noted when the forcing frequency of excitation and the Strouhal frequency associated with vortex shedding were sufficiently close. It is observed that the in-phase excitation in which either blowing or suction is applied on both surfaces of a cylinder at a particular instant introduces a significant bias in the sound field directivity. The interaction between the lift dipole equivalent sources due to vortex shedding and the monopole and the drag dipole equivalent sources due to excitation introduces a bias in the sound field directivity. As a result, a dominant sound field is observed either in the top-left or in the bottom-left parts of the domain.