Abstract
This work focuses on the analysis of flow structure mechanism behind three rectangular bodies arranged side-by-side. Such type of arrangement can be seen in various applications of practical significance. Lattice Boltzmann method is adopted as a numerical technique for the current study. The simulations are performed for the unsteady, Newtonian and the incompressible flow past three rectangular bodies to investigate the behavior of flow at different aspect ratios, gap ratios and fixed Reynolds number. The numerical results obtained from the proposed study are compared with the results available in the literature. The observed findings of the current study line up well with the existing findings of other researchers.
•Deflected, bistable, flip-flopping, chaotic, symmetric and synchronized flow are the main flow patterns investigated in this paper.•The mean drag coefficient (Cdmean) of all cylinders shows decreasing behavior for large and small spacing values (g).•At small g, the Cdmean of middle body coincides with single body Cdmean at aspect ratio of AR = 0.25.•At small g, the Strouhal (St) of the lower and upper body decrease and approaches to St of a single body at AR = 1.