The acrosswind response of the downwind prism in a twin-prism system with a staggered arrangement

The flow interaction between two identical neighboring twin square prisms in a staggered arrangement in an open terrain was investigated experimentally. The downwind prism was mounted on a rigid-aeroelastic setup in an open-terrain boundary layer flow to measure its acrosswind root-mean-square responses and aerodynamic damping ratios. By varying the relative location of the upwind prism and the Scruton number associated with the downwind prism, the acrosswind aeroelastic behavior of the downwind prism was analyzed and compared to that of an isolated one. Results showed that the acrosswind root-mean-square response of the downwind prism could be either suppressed or enhanced by the wake flow produced by the neighboring upwind prism. Besides the assessment of the wake effect of the downwind prism, finally, regressed relationships were presented to describe the variation of the aerodynamic damping ratio so as to predict its acrosswind fluctuating response numerically.