The Cylinder and Semicylinder in Subsonic Flow

In studying the diffraction of shock waves around various two-dimensional obstacles we have observed that flow separation and the formation of vortices contributes in an important way to transient loading of the obstacle. The cases of a cylinder and semicylinder are especially interesting because the breakaway point is not clearly defined as it is for objects having sharp corners. Accordingly a number of experiments have been made in the shock tube to observe the influence of Reynolds number and Mach number on the transient flow patterns about a cylinder and about a semicylinder mounted on a smooth plane. Some differences might be anticipated since the plane would impose a symmetry on the flow and produce a viscous boundary layer for which there is no counterpart with the cylinder. In the course of these experiments it was noted that a condition of steady subsonic flow about both the cylinder and semicylinder was approached. Thus a comparison with von Karrnan's theoretical calculation of the drag on a cylinder, from certain characteristics of its wake or "vortex street", was undertaken.