Surface Roughness Effects on Circular Cylinders at High Reynolds Numbers

The problem of flow-induced vibration has been studied extensively. However, much of this research has focused on the smooth cylinder to gain an understanding of the mechanisms that cause vortex-induced vibration. In this paper results of an investigation of the effect of surface roughness on the cross-wind forces are presented. Measurements of the sectional RMS fluctuating lift forces and the axial correlation of the pressures for Reynolds numbers from 1 × 10⁵ to 1.4 × 10⁶ are given. It was found that surface roughness significantly increased the axial correlation of the pressures to similar values found at high subcritical Reynolds numbers. There was little effect of the surface roughness on the sectional lift forces. The improved correlation of the vortex shedding means rough cylinders will be subject to larger cross-wind forces and an increased possibility of vortex-induced vibration compared to smooth cylinders.