The instantaneous drag forces and wake mechanics of an accelerating sphere have been investigated experimentally. Drag forces are first compared to the circular flat plate, which is characterized by stable and Reynolds-number independent vortex-ring formation during accelerations from rest. For the sphere, vortex-ring formation is shown to be greatly suppressed by the time-dependent movement of the separation line during start-up towards the steady-state position, which induces strong vortexbody interactions. Next, inviscid theory is used to predict the state of the pressure-gradient field around a sphere during accelerations from a non-zero initial velocity. The azimuthal point of separation extracted from experimental data for the subcritical cases is found to be strongly correlated with the start of the adverse pressure gradient predicted by theory. For the supercritical cases, the point of separation is unaffected by the imposed accelerations and remains at the steady-state position. The results suggest that accelerations can only be exploited to delay flow separation at Reynolds numbers with steady separation points near the apex, where the tangential accelerations are the largest.

No abstract

No abstract