Abstract

We report an experimental method for inhibiting vortex shedding generated by the Benard-von Karman instability (BvK) in the wake of a cylinder. We show that monitoring: the pressure at the front stagnation point of a circular cylinder can completely suppress the Benard-von Karman instability for Reynolds numbers in the range 48.5 Re 150. We then study some properties of the BvK instability in the presence of suction at the front stagnation point and mention that this method can be used to generate well-controlled localized vortical structures in the form of vortex pairs.