EFFECT OF SEPARATION ANGLE ON VORTEX STREETS

Experiments were made at a constant Reynolds number of 1. 5x10**4 based on model width to find how the vortex wake of a two-dimensional bluff body was affected by changing the shear layer separation angle. It was found that while each wake could be described using a universal Strouhal number previously defined in the literature, the wakes were not similar in the sense of having a common fixed spacing ratio. It is shown that this is a logical consequence of the stability criterion that is used both to derive the universal Strouhal numbers and to make predictions of the spacing ratios.