EACWE 5
Florence, Italy
19
th
  23
rd
 July 2009
Flying Sphere image  Museo Ideale L. Da Vinci 
Keywords:  Computational  Wind  Engineering,  Large  Eddy  Simulation,  rectangular  cylinder, 
BARC benchmark 
ABSTRACT
 
 
The aim of this paper is to provide a contribution to the analysis of the 3D, high Reynolds number, 
turbulent,  separated  and  reattached  flow  around  a  fixed  sharp-edged  rectangular  cylinder  with  a 
chord-to-depth  ratio  equal  to  5.  The  present  computational  study  is  developed  in  the  frame  of  the 
Benchmark on the Aerodynamics of a Rectangular Cylinder (BARC). 
First,  the  adopted  flow  modelling  and  computational  approach  are  described.  Second,  some  of  the 
2D mechanisms that are responsible for the variation of the fluctuating pressure on the side surface 
are scrutinised: the computational approach post-processing facilities are employed to point out the 
flow structures which mainly affect the vortex formation and shedding past the separation point and 
to  look  for  significant  relationships  between  them  and  the  pressure  field  on  the  cylinder  side 
surface. 
 1.  INTRODUCTION 
The  aerodynamic  behaviour  of  rectangular  cylinders  has  attracted  the  attention  of  the  scientific 
                                                 
 Contact person: L. Bruno, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Strutturale e Geotecnica, Politecnico di Torino, Viale Mattioli 
39, 10126 Torino, Italy, Phone +39 (0)11.090.4870, Fax +39 (0)11.090.4999, E-mail: luca.bruno@polito.it 
Analysis of the separated flow around a 5:1 rectangular cylinder 
through computational simulation 
L.Bruno
1
, N. Coste
2
, D. Fransos
2
 
1
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Strutturale e Geotecnica, Politecnico di Torino - luca.bruno@polito.it 
-  Viale Mattioli 39, 10126 Torino, Italy 
2
OptiFlow Company - coste@optiflow.fr , fransos@optiflow.fr 
Bt. Azurburo, 27, boulevard Charles Moretti, 13014 Marseille, France 
 
community since the experimental reference works of Okajima (1982) and Norberg (1993). On one 
hand,  both  the  two  dimensional  (2D)  and  three  dimensional  (3D)  features  of  the  low-Reynolds 
number flow around rectangular cylinders has been clarified in several studies, e.g. in Nakamura et 
al. (1996), Hourigan et al. (2001), Tan et al. (2004). On the other hand, the high-Reynolds number 
flow  (i.e.  Re    1.e  +  4)  has  been  studied  by  means  of  both  experimental  and  computational 
approaches,  with  emphasis  on  its  dependence  on  the  chord-to-depth  ratio,  e.g.    in  Yu  &  Kareem 
(1996,1998), Shimada & Ishihara (2002). In particular, the high Re number flow around the square 
cylinder  has  been  widely  investigated  since  the  beginning  of  the  Nineties,  on  the  basis  of  some 
detailed experimental measurements (Durao et al. 1988, Lyn and Rodi 1994) and in the framework 
of  a  benchmark  study  promoted  in  the  Computational  Fluid  Dynamics  community  (Ercoftac  Test 
Case  LES2,  Rodi  et  al.  1997).  The  large  amount  of  sensitivity  studies  performed  and  the  results 
obtained  for  this  case-study  can  provide  a  useful  background  knowledge  for  the  study  of  the 
aerodynamic behaviour of more elongated sections, despite the involved fluid flow phenomena are 
quite  different,  mainly  because  of  the  boundary  layer  reattachment  along  the  section  side  surface 
and the interaction between vortical structures shed from the leading and trailing edges. 
Recently,  a  Benchmark  on  the  Aerodynamics  of  a  5:1  Rectangular  Cylinder  (BARC)  has  been 
proposed in order to provide a contribution to the analysis of the high-Reynolds number, turbulent, 
separated  flow  around  a  fixed  rectangular  cylinder  with  chord-to-depth  ratio  equal  to  5  (Bartoli  et 
al.  2008).  This  ratio  is  far  enough  from  those  at  which  discontinuities  in  the  aerodynamic  regime 
arise,  i.e.  the  2.8  and  6  ratios  (Shimada  &  Ishihara  2002),  in  order  to  avoid  the  introduction  of 
further difficulties in the study. For this benchmark, the depth-based Reynolds number has to be in 
the  range  of    2.e+4    Re
D
    6.e+4,  the  oncoming  flow  has  to  be  set  parallel  to  the  base  of  the 
rectangle ( = 0) and the maximum intensity of the longitudinal component of turbulence has to be 
I
u
  =  0.01.  The  selected  cylinder  is  considered  as  a  representative  benchmark  of  a  bridge  deck  or 
high-rise building elongated section. 
In  the  perspective  of  the  benchmark,  a  computational  exploratory  study  has  been  performed  by 
the  present  authors  (Bruno  et  al.  2008)  in  order  to  focus  on  three  main  aspects.  First,  the obtained 
main aerodynamic integral parameters are compared with other results proposed in literature (Yu & 
Kareem  1996,  1998,  Shimada  &  Ishihara  2002).  The  overall  simulated  aerodynamic  behaviour 
seems  to  well  agree  with  the  reference  results,  even  though  the  data  about  the  fluctuating  force 
components are sometimes scattered: the expected parameter sensitivity to physical incoming flow 
conditions  (e.g.  Re  number,  turbulence  intensity  and  integral  length  scale),  experimental  set-up 
conditions  and/or  computational  model  components  (e.g.  turbulence  modelling,  numerical 
approaches)  could  be  systematically  addressed  in  future  researches  in  the  frame  of  the  BARC 
activity.  Second,  the  3D  features  of  the  flow  around  the  nominally  2D  bluff  cylinder  has  been 
evaluated by means of two different techniques. The spanwise coherence of the pressure field on the 
cylinder  lateral  surface  qualitatively  agrees  with  the  results  in  literature  (Matsumoto  et  al.  2003), 
even  though  it  is  generally  underestimated.  The  Proper  Orthogonal  Decomposition  (POD),  often 
adopted  in  literature  for  the  analysis  and  synthesis  of  random  wind  pressure  fields,  especially  on 
high-rise buildings (e.g. Holmes 1990, Tamura et al. 1999) has been also applied to the side-surface 
fluctuating pressure field. It has shown that, even though the 3D flow features are not negligible, the 
main  phenomena  which  drive  the  aerodynamic  forces  remain  2D.  Finally,  a  first  attempt  has  been 
made  in  Bruno  et  al.  (2008)  to  approach  some  remaining  difficulties  in  describing  the  expected 
complex  flow  phenomena  around  the  cylinder  and  in  relating  such  phenomena  to  the  fluctuating 
aerodynamic  forces  acting  on  the  cylinder  itself.  The  computational  approach  post-processing 
facilities  has  been  employed  to  look  for  significant  relationships  between  flow  structures,  pressure 
field and aerodynamic forces. As a result, a guess conceptual partition of the side-surface has been 
proposed  and  the  so-called  mean  pressure  recovery  region  has  been  identified  as  the  one  that 
gives the most significant contribution to the overall lift force. 
The present study aims to give a deeper insight in the computational results previously obtained, 
with  special  emphasis  to  the  relationships  between  the  fluctuating  pressure  field  along  the  side 
surface and the velocity fields in its neighborhood, resulting from the boundary layer separation and 
vortex-shedding.  In  particular,  the  mean  and  instantaneous  primary  and  secondary  flow  structures 
downstream  the  separation  point  at  the  leading  edge  are  scrutinized.  The  analysis  allows  to  better 
define the homogeneous partition of the side-surface previously proposed. 
 2.  FLOW MODELLING AND COMPUTATIONAL APPROACH 
The 3D, turbulent, unsteady flow around the cylinder is modelled in the frame of the Large Eddy 
Simulation  approach  to  turbulence  using  the  classical  time-dependent  filtered  Navier-Stokes 
equations 
,
1
, 0
(
(
+
|
|
.
|
\
|
s
ij
i
j
j
i
j i j
j i
i
i
i
x
u
x
u
x x
p
x
u u
t
u
x
u
 
  (1) 
where x and t are the space and time coordinates,  u and 
p
 are the filtered velocity and pressure,  
is the kinematic viscosity and  the fluid density. The sub-grid stress tensor is expressed according 
to Boussinesq's assumption as 
,
|
|
.
|
\
|
=
i
j
j
i
t
s
ij
x
u
x
u
 
  (2) 
so  that  the  equation  system  can  be  closed  by  a  transport  equation  for  the  kinetic  energy  k
t
  of  the 
unresolved stresses (Yoshizawa 1986) 
(   )   (   ) ,
2 / 3
 
l
k
C P
x
k
x
k u
x t
k
t
k
j
t
t
j
t j
j
t
   +
(
  (3) 
where 
ij ij t k
S S P    2 =
, 
2 / 1
t k k t
k l C = 
,  the  constants  are  set  equal  to  C
=1.05,  C
k
=0.07  and  l
=l
k
=, 
and    is  the  characteristic  spatial  length  of  the  filter,  related  to  the  mesh  size  and  defined  as  the 
cubic  root  of  the  mesh  cell  volume.  The  modelling  of  the  flow  in  the  turbulent  boundary  layer  is 
accomplished by introducing a filter width  damped according to the Van Driest approach: 
, exp 1 , min
(
(
|
|
.
|
\
|
|
|
.
|
\
|
   =
+
+
A
y
y
C
k
  (4) 
where  k=0.4187  is  the  Von  Karman  constant,  C
=0.158,  A
+
=26  is  the  Van  Driest  constant,  y  the 
distance to the wall, y
+
=u
 y/ the non dimensional wall unit and u
  the shear velocity (Mason and 
Thomas 1992, De Villiers 2006). 
The  computational  domain  and  the  boundary  conditions  are  shown  in  Figure  1.  The  spanwise 
length of the computational domain is set equal to L/B = 1 on the basis of a short review of the state 
of  art.  On  the  basis  of  several  studies  addressed  to  the  case  of  the  square  cylinder,  Tamura  et  al. 
(1998) have proposed a minimum requirement for the spanwise length (L/B  1) where the breadth 
B  of  the  bluff  cylinder  is  given  as  a  reference  length.  To  the  authors'  knowledge,  detailed 
experimental  data  on  the  spanwise  correlation  length  for  low-degree  of  bluffness  cylinders  are  not 
available.  Other  LES  simulations  applied  to  more  elongated,  reattached-type  rectangular  cross-
sections  have  generally  adopted  spanwise  length  below  or  equal  the  lower  bound  proposed  by 
Tamura  et  al.  (1998):  for  instance,  in  Yu  &  Kareem  (1998)  L/B=0.5  (B/D=4),  in  Mannini  et  al. 
(2008) L/B=1 (B/D=5).  
Figure 1: Analytical domain and boundary conditions 
Dirichlet  conditions  on  the  velocity  field  and  on  the  sub-grid  kinetic  energy  are  imposed  at  the 
inlet boundaries. Neumann conditions on the normal component of the stress tensor    and on k
t
, are 
imposed at the outlet boundaries. Periodic conditions are imposed on both the side surfaces and on 
the  upper-lower  surfaces,  as  depicted  in  Figure  1.  No-slip  conditions  are  imposed  at  the  section 
surface.  The  initial  conditions  are  obtained  from  a  previous  LES  simulation,  where  the  standard 
Smagorinsky sub-grid model (Smagorinsky 1963) was employed. 
A hexahedral grid is adopted to discretise the spatial computational domain. The grid is hybrid in 
the  x-y  plane  and  structured  along  the  spanwise  direction  z.  The  grid  in  the  x-y  plane  is  shown  in 
Figure 2 with a close-up view around the leading edge.   
(a)  (b) 
Figure 2: Computational grid in the x-y plane in the whole domain (a) and around 
the leading edge (b) 
A  body-fitted,  structured  grid  boundary  layer  is  generated  at  the  wall,  where  the  constant  grid 
spacing normal to the cylinder wall is y/B= 5.e-4.  An unstructured quadrilateral grid is used in the 
remaining  part  of  the  x-y  plane  to  obtain  an  effective  cell  distribution  on  the basis of the expected 
flow  phenomena  to  be  simulated.  The  3D  grid  is  obtained  by  the  structured  projection  of  the  2D 
hybrid grid along the spanwise direction z, where 24 cells are employed to uniformly discretise the 
domain length L=B. The adopted grid generation strategy permits to achieve a good enough spatial 
resolution  with  an  overall  number  of  cells  (about  1.75  e+6)  lower  than    the  one  required  for  fully 
structured  grids,  such  as  the  Cartesian  or  O-type  ones.  The  resulting  non-dimensional  mean  wall 
distance  value  y
+
  is  close  to  the  unit.  The  non-dimensional  time-step  needed  for  an  accurate 
advancement  in  time  is  t  =  5.e-3  tU/D.  The  simulation  is  extended  over  T  =  800  tU/D  non 
dimensional  time  units  in  order  to  overcome  the  transient  solution  and  to  allow  the  statistical 
analysis of the periodic flow. 
The  OpenFoam  Finite  Volume  open  source  code  is  used  in  the  following  to  numerically 
evaluate  the  flow-field.  The  cell-centre  values  of  the  variables  are  interpolated  at  face  locations 
using the second-order Central Difference Scheme for the diffusive terms. The convection terms are 
discretised  by  means  of  the  so-called  Limited  Linear  scheme,  a  2nd  order  accurate  bounded  Total 
Variational Diminishing (TVD) scheme resulting from the application of the Sweby limiter (Sweby 
1984) to the central differencing in order to enforce a monotonicity criterion. Advancement in time 
is accomplished by the two-step Backward Differentiation Formulae method. The pressure-velocity 
coupling is achieved by means of the pressure-implicit PISO algorithm, using a predictor-corrector 
approach  for  the  time  discretisation  of  the  momentum  equation,  whilst  enforcing  the  continuity 
equation.  Computations  are  carried  out  on  8  Intel  Quadcore  X5355  2.66GHz  CPUs  and  require 
about 2.5GB of memory and 15 days of CPU time for the whole simulation. 
 3.  APPLICATION AND RESULTS 
The  incoming  flow  is  characterised  by  a  Re=UD/  =  4.e+4  Reynolds  number,  where  U  is  the  free 
stream  velocity,  an  incidence    =  0  and  a  turbulence  intensity  It  =  0%  (ideal  smooth  flow).  The 
cylinder rectangular cross section is characterised by sharp edges and smooth surfaces. 
In order to focus on the 2D flow phenomena that mainly affect the aerodynamic behaviour of the 
cylinder,  the  recognised  mean  flow  structures  are  pointed  out  and  discussed  first.  Some  unclear 
aspects  of  the  mean  flow  downstream  the  separation  point  are  clarified  by  analysing  the  flow 
dynamics  in  the  same  zone.  Finally,  an  attempt  is  made  to  relate  the  mean  field  along  the  side 
surface and the instantaneous field downstream the separation point. 
3.1  2D Mean Flow 
The topology of the mean flow around the obstacle is shown in Figure 3: the pathlines obtained 
from the velocity field averaged in time and along the spanwise dimension are plotted in the upper 
part  of  the  figure,  while  a  synthetic  scheme  of  the  recognised  mean  flow  structures  is  proposed  in 
the lower part.   
Figure 3: Pathlines averaged in time and along the spanwise dimension (above) and 
scheme of the recognised mean flow structures (below) 
The mean flow separates at the leading edge and reattaches just upstream the trailing edge, while 
the  reversed  flow  in  the  wake  approximatively  extends  along  0.76  D.  The  main  vortex  shows  an 
inclined  major  axis,  while  a  thin  recirculation  region  is  clearly  visible  close  to  the  lateral  wall, 
between the main vortex and the separation point, without reaching the latter. In a large flow region 
between  the  main  vortex  and  the  recirculation  region,  called  herein  inner  region,  no  mean 
structures can be easily recognised.  
Figure 4: Recognised mean flow structures and friction coefficient distribution  
The mean wall shear stress coefficient 
f C
 distribution on the lower half perimeter is plotted in 
Figure  4  and  ascribed  to  the  mean  flow  structures  discussed  above.  On  one  hand,  the  changes  in 
sign  of 
f C
  permit  the  x-length  of  these  structures  to  be  measured.  In  particular,  the  mean 
reattachment  point  can  be  located  as  the  point  between  the  counter-clockwise    main  vortex,  along 
which 
0 < f C
,  and  the  reattached  flow,  along  which 
0 > f C
.  It  follows  that  the  distance  of  the 
reattachment  point  from  the  separation  one  is  equal  to  x
R
/B  =  0.933,  which  is  larger  than  the  one 
estimated  by  Matsumoto  et  al.  (2003)  based  on  the  distributions  of  the  time-averaged  pressure 
coefficient  and  rms  value  (x
R
/B  =  7/8).  This  slight  discrepancy  can  be  ascribed  to  the  adopted 
different  identification  methods,  but  another  possible  explication  can  be  found  looking  at  the 
difference between the present incoming flow conditions (ideal smooth flow) and the experimental 
ones  affected  by  wind  tunnel  residual  incoming  turbulence  (Laneville  and  Williams  1979, 
Nakamura and Ozono 1987, Bruno and Fransos 2008). Deeper sensitivity studies would be required 
to verify this hypothesis. On the other hand, the 
f C
 distribution allows to shed some light into the 
inner region flow. In fact, the clockwise recirculation region involves positive 
f C
 values, while 
negative  ones  are  located  just  downstream  the  separation  point  up  to  the  recirculation  region. 
According to the authors, this second interval cannot be directly ascribed to an upwind extension of 
the main vortex, but could correspond to other counter-clockwise flow structures. Bearing in mind 
that POD analysis (Bruno et al. 2008) has shown that the flow is mainly 2D along the inner region, 
time-averaging  is  supposed  to  partially  hide  the  instantaneous  structures  which  take  place  in  this 
region during the vortex growth and shedding. 
3.2  Flow dynamics downstream the separation point 
In  order  to  verify  the  hypothesis  above,  the  dynamics  of  the  local  flow  downstream  the 
separation  point  is  analysed  in  the  following.  Figure  5  shows  the  instantaneous  pathlines  in  this 
region:  the  patterns  are  sampled  with  a  step  equal  to  0.25  non  dimensional  time  unit  during  a 
sampling windows equal to 4.25 non dimensional time units, corresponding to half a period of the 
fluctuating lift force, approximatively.   
Figure 5: Vortex shedding  from the pseudo-triangular region and coalescing  
Some  recognised  clockwise  and  counter-clockwise  vortices  are  sketched.  Dashed lines joint the 
vortex  centre  in  successive  times.  The  sequence  mainly  takes  into  exam  the  shedding  process  of 
three  vortices  (v
1
,  v
2
,  v
3
)  and  the  related  flow  structures.  Grey  dash-dot  lines  refers  to  vortices 
successively  shed.  The  qualitative  exam  of  the  sequence  does  not  aim  to  provide  the  rigorous 
measure of the flow structures, but to contribute to understanding the essential physics of the local 
flow. The vortices are not shed from the separation point, but from the apex of a pseudo-triangular 
region  just  downstream  it  (outlined  for  instance  by  dash  lines  at  times  since  787.25  to  788.50) 
which includes a sort of elongated clockwise bubble in the shear layer just downstream separation 
together with a secondary counter-clockwise vortex close to the surface, caused by the velocity field 
induced  by  the  growing  vortex.  The  pseudo-triangular  region  remains  substantially  attached  to  the 
body during the shedding cycle, even if it oscillates and its geometry changes: the secondary vortex 
is nearly constant in time and space, while the bubble slightly pulsates attaining its maximum and 
minimum elongation just before and after the vortex shedding, respectively. These structures, which 
characterise  the  simulated  fully-developed  flow  downstream  the  separation  point,  recall  the  ones 
first recognised by Pullin and Perry (1980) in the transient flow involved by a starting vortex past a 
90 edge: for this reason, the same nomenclature as in Pullin and Perry (1980) is adopted. 
The  simulated  instantaneous  flow  pattern  at  the  first  sampling  time  (tU/D=787.25) is compared 
with one of the flow visualisations proposed by Pullin and Perry in Figure 6: the figures are scaled 
in order to obtain the same distance of the apex from the wall; the Pullin and Perry visualisation is 
rotated  with  respect  to  the  original  one  in  order  to  make  the  comparison  easier.  Despite  the 
differences  between  the  overall  flow  conditions,  the  clear  analogy  seems  to  confirm  the  research 
perspectives  expressed  by  Buresti  (1998):  []  it  is  reasonable  to  infer  that  many  of  the  features 
observed in the transient flow field around the wedge, induced by increasing the upstream velocity, 
may be qualitative similar to those occurring near a bluff body separation point during the roll up of 
a forming vortex. In other terms, the pseudo-triangular region seems to be a case-insensitive, basic 
flow structure in bluff-body aerodynamics, even if its extent is a function of the body shape, and in 
particular  of  the  afterbody  (Buresti  1998,  see  Braza  et  al.  1986  for  the  circular  cylinder).  In  the 
present case-study, the pseudo-triangular region spans over about 5/8D from the separation point.   
Figure 6: Present study instantaneous pathlines (a) and instantaneous streaklines 
produced by a starting vortex past a 90 wedge (b), after Pullin and Perry (1980)  
The  primary  vortex  shedding    period  is  equal  to  about  0.75  non  dimensional  time  unit  and  it  is 
convected along the wall with a velocity estimated around of 0.48U. At tU/D=788.75, three primary 
vortices (v
1
, v
2
, v
3
) successively shed from the apex are travelling along the side surface. During the 
following non-dimensional time unit (second column in Figure 13), they successively coalesce in a 
single  vortex  (v
1,2,3
,  tU/D=790.00).  The  resulting  vortex  induces  a  secondary  counter-clockwise 
vortex  v   close  to  the  side  surface.  Unlike  the  nearly-constant  secondary  vortex  included  in  the 
pseudo-triangular  region,  the  vortex  v   is  convected  upstream  by  the  velocity  field  induced  by  the 
main vortex with a velocity estimated around of 0.14U. 
3.3  The lateral surface mapping revisited 
Once the mean field along the side surface and the instantaneous field downstream the separation 
point have been discussed, Figure 7 (a) makes an attempt to relate them: the instantaneous pathlines 
refer to the sampled time (tU/D=788.75) at which the maximum number of primary vortices (v
1
, v
2
, 
v
3
)  are  present  at  the  same  time  past  the  pseudo-triangular  region;  the  recognised  instantaneous 
structures in the mean inner region are plotted with continuous lines, while the mean structures are 
drawn with dashed lines.   
Figure 7: Instantaneous pathlines, flow structures and lateral surface mapping (a), 
pressure coefficient distributions along the central section (b-d) 
It  follows  that  the  mean  inner  region  can  be  viewed  as  the  one  which  contains  the  pseudo-
triangular  region,  the  primary  vortices  shed  from  it  and  the  secondary  counter-clockwise  vortices   
induced by the large vortex resulting from the coalescence of the primary vortices. In particular, the 
mean recirculation region results from the contribution of several instantaneous vortices, namely the 
steady one included in the pseudo-triangular region and the ones convected upstream. Figures 7 (b)-
(d)  graphs  the  distributions  of  the  pressure  mean  value,  standard  deviation  and  skewness, 
respectively.  Both  the  recognised  flow  structures  and  the  pressure  distributions  allow  to  better 
define  the  guess,  physical-based  mapping  of  the  lateral  surface  firstly  introduced  in  Bruno  et  al. 
(2008).  The  mapping  results  from  four  recognised  zones,  whose  extent  is  roughly  evaluated  at  the 
external boundary of the separating shear flow: they are named, quoted and graphically represented 
with grey patterns in Figure 7. It is worth stressing that the rigorous identification of the x-length of 
these  zones,  even  though  possible,  is  not  the  scope  of  this  work,  while  approximate  but 
phenomenon-based  lengths  have  been  preferred  to  make  a  guess  at  the  relationship  between  the 
fluid flow phenomena and the pressure distribution along the side surface. 
The  vortex  shedding  (vs)  region  is  defined  as  the  x-distance  from  the  separation  point  to  the 
apex  of  the  mean  inner  region:  it  contains  the  instantaneous  primary  vortices  shed  by  the  pseudo-
triangular  region  and  it  is  characterised  by  a 
p C
  plateau  and  low 
p C
~
  values,  due  to  the  quasi-
steady behaviour of the pseudo-triangular region. The main vortex x-length is split into two zones in 
order to distinguish the part of the side surface where the coalescence of the primary vortices takes 
place and the one where the instantaneous reattachment occurs: the watershed point between these 
regions is obtained not only by looking at the point where the vortex-induced reversed flow close to 
the  wall  has  a  non  null  vertical  component,  but  also  remembering  the  critical aspect ratio B/D  3 
that  distinguishes  separated-type  and  reattached-type  rectangular  sections.  The  vortex-coalescing 
(vc)  zone  shows  the  maximum  value  of  the  mean  suction  and  a  steep  increase  of  the  fluctuating 
component, while the mean pressure recovery gives the name to the second region (pr), where the 
maximum rms value also occurs. The mean reattachment flow (rf ) region is regained from above 
and it is characterised by another 
p C
 plateau. It is worth pointing out that the longest lengths show 
a  change  in  sign  of  the  pressure  skewness  and  that  the  bound  of  each  length  corresponds  to  its 
relative  maximum  or  minimum  values.  Although  deeper  studies  are  needed  to  interpret  this 
evidence,  the  features  of  the  Cp
sk
  distribution  seems  to  confirm  the  significance  of  the  selected 
zones. 
Finally, the regions are characterised looking at the spectral content of the pressure coefficient.   
Figure 8: Pressure coefficient time histories and PSD along the upper side surface 
The  pressure  coefficient  evolution  in  time  at  the  mid  point  of  each  length  and  the  normalised 
Power Spectral Densities (PSDs) of the pressure are related to the regions in Figure 8. The pressure 
fluctuations  in  the  vs  and  pr  lengths  are  mainly  characterised  by  one  frequency  component,  which 
corresponds to the prevailing frequency in the lift coefficient (Strouhal number St). On the contrary, 
the  points  in  the  vc  and  rf  lengths  show  a  broad  band  spectrum,  where  the  most  significant 
frequencies  are  higher  than  St,  in  particular  two  and  three  times  the  Strouhal  number.  Further 
studies  are  required  to  provide  a  physical-based  interpretation  of  the  frequency  content  of  the 
pressure  coefficient  in  the  vc  and  pr  regions,  on  the  basis  of  the  flow  dynamics  discussed  in  this 
paper (Fig. 5-7) and of new analysis of the flow close to the trailing edge, respectively. 
 4.  CONCLUSIONS 
A computational study has been proposed in this work to analyse some flow features of the high 
Reynolds number, turbulent, separated and reattached flow around a fixed rectangular cylinder with 
chord-to-depth ratio equal to 5. 
The computational approach postprocessing facilities have been employed to shed some light on 
the relationships between the vortex shedding mechanisms and the mean and instantaneous pressure 
field  along  the  cylinder  lateral  surface.  In  particular,  homogeneous  regions  along  the  side  surfaces 
have  been  proposed  and  the  so-called  mean  pressure  recovery  region  has  been  identified  as  the 
one that gives the most significant contribution to the lift force. 
Further  studies  are  required  to  check  the  present  proposal,  to  complete  the  knowledge  of  the 
main fluid flow phenomena which drive the section aerodynamics and to provide a complete data-
base for validation and comparison purposes. 
In  this  perspective,  the  BARC  benchmark  could  offer  an  useful  research  framework  to  the 
scientific community adopting both computational and experimental approaches. 
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