Statistical Properties in the Wake of a Rectangular Plate

Wake properties of a rectangular plate with aspect ratio AR of 2 and 3 are investigated experimentally to identify statistically. It is characteristic of the near wake of a rectangular plate that mean velocity profile has two inflection points on the major-axis. One of the inflection points is yielded by the vortex shedding and the other is located within the recirculation region. The growth rate of a half width on the minor-axis is greater than that of the axisymmetric bluff bodies, such as a sphere and a circular disk, it follows the growth rate of a half width of the two-dimensional wake. The reduction rate of the maximum velocity defect is also greater than wakes of axisymmetric and two-dimensional bluff bodies. These wake properties of a rectangular plate are similar with that of an elliptic wake with the same AR. However, the existence of the corner of a rectangular plate, which is the geometrical difference between the rectangular and elliptic plate, only affected the maximum turbulent intensity on major axis.