Wake events during early three-dimensional transition of a circular cylinder placed in shear flow

Three-dimensional (3D) direct numerical simulations are carried out for shear flows past a circular cylinder in the early 2D (two-dimensional)–3D transition regime. The effect of incoming shear is buried in a source term employing a velocity transformation. Wake transition events are inspected for both planar and span-wise shear flows. Parallel, time-mean-symmetric shedding for planar shear and oblique vortex shedding for span-wise shear are observed with a near wake roll-up vortical structure. Vortex splits and dislocations are found without any order in time for moderate shear, while they give way to visibly higher levels of instabilities at higher shear rates. Mode “B” instabilities are noted for planar shear, while opposite streamwise vortices align in parallel horizontal layers for span-wise shear. Local Strouhal frequency (Stz) drops inside a span-wise cell for span-wise shear with finite jumps across cell boundaries. Wavelet multiresolution analysis indicates a strong flushing effect, triggered by vortex dislocations, which gives rise to a new frequency event. The dominant span-wise mode indicates periodic forcing of mode “A” instabilities at a rate close to the inverse of local Strouhal number. In contrast, the streamwise velocity modes result in a global span-wise similarity. Intrinsic secondary instabilities play a vital role in span-wise shear cases. The addition of planar shear makes the downstream defect layer nearly span-wise-invariant. However, the velocity defect is entirely controlled by the span-wise shear. The momentum thickness exhibits streamwise growth, similar to the Blasius profile. The shape factor of such profiles indicates a delay in laminar–turbulent transition for span-wise shear.