Large Eddy Simulation of Flow over Bluff Bodies

Cross flow over bluff bodies has always been the important topic of study in the field of Fluid Mechanics. Though flow over cylinder and sphere is studied extensively with turbulence modeling as a tool; few, quite tangible problems other than these two, like turbulent flow over the Cricket ball are still untouched, which happens to be one of the aims of the present work. The project involves understanding the basic cross flow over cylinder and sphere and furthering the study into sports dynamics, where a cricket ball is modeled and placed in a virtual wind tunnel. Phenomena like normal swing, top spin and reverse swing are simulated by imparting various boundary conditions like additional spin, roughness. It is proved that directions of side forces in a normal and reverse swing are opposite. Positive and Negative Magnus effects are simulated for different Reynolds numbers. Side forces in all the cases of initial conditions are noted and plotted for different cricket ball speeds. Trajectories of ball for a full pitch delivery are calculated for different swings. Conclusions of the analysis are stated at last to support the actual observations in the game of Cricket.