Normal Flat Plates in Tandem: an Experimental Investigation

This paper reports an experimental study on the flow over two tandem flat plates perpendicular to the flow. The study was carried out by means of a constant-temperature hot wire anemometer and smoke visualizations at Re ¼ 8340. Accurate measurements of the Strouhal number were obtained for plate separations ranging from 0.25x chord to 7.5x chord. Two different flow regimes are described, depending on the separation between the plates, by exploiting evidence from the Strouhal number behaviour and the flow visualizations. A narrow interval of separation values is found where both regimes alternatively appear.