Passive control of flow structure interaction between a sphere and free-surface

Flow characteristics for both a smooth and a vented sphere such as velocity vectors, patterns of streamlines, vorticity contours, stream-wise fluctuations, cross-stream velocity fluctuations and Reynolds stress correlations between a sphere and free-surface for various submerged ratio at Re =5,000 are studied by using dye visualization and the particle image velocimetry technique. Passive control of flow structure interaction between sphere and free surface was examined by using a modified geometry which has a 15% sphere diameter hole passing through the sphere equator. Both of the spheres were separately placed beneath the free surface with different positions from touching to the free surface to two sphere diameters below the free surface. It is demonstrated that reattachment point of the separated flow to the free surface varies for both of the sphere cases as the sphere position alters vertically through the water flow while the flow structure for the vented sphere occurs considerably symmetrical due to forming of a pair of counter-rotating ring vortices