Effect of splitter plate on the transition of the cylinder wake

Effect of splitter plate attached to a circular cylinder on the transition of the cylinder wake from 2-D to 3-D are numerically investigated and experimentally observed. It is found that the splitter plate can postpone the 3-D transition to higher Reynolds numbers in varying degrees with different plate lengths. At the same time, the critical spanwise wavelengths of the unstable modes become larger than that of plain cylinder wake. In this study, the secondary instability of flow past a plain circular cylinder is also examined numerically using the finite differencing method. It is shown that the instability for the transition is supercritical, contrary to the results obtained by Henderson and Barkley [Phys. Fluids 8 (6), 1683 (1996)].