Adjoint Sensitivity Maps for Passive Flow Control Around Rotating Circular Cylinders Across a Wide Operating Envelope

Abstract

Rotating circular cylinders are employed in a variety of engineering applications, one prominent example being Flettner rotors for wind-assisted ship propulsion. Besides optimizing the aerodynamic performance of the cylinder itself, passive flow-control devices placed in its vicinity offer additional potential for manipulating the resulting aerodynamic forces. The present work introduces a topology-based adjoint sensitivity analysis for rotating circular cylinders over a wide operating envelope covering Reynolds numbers from 1E+01 to 1E+07 and spinning ratios between 0 and 2 pi. Local sensitivity fields associated with drag, lift, and torque are derived using a porous-medium formulation and validated by dedicated forward simulations employing both distributed Darcy-type source terms and a sensitivity-informed passive flow-control structure. Particular emphasis is placed on the combined sign distribution of the drag and lift sensitivities, yielding intuitive design maps that directly identify regions where local momentum extraction simultaneously improves or deteriorates both objectives. A systematic investigation of the resulting sensitivity spectra reveals that the large-scale topology of the sensitivity fields is governed primarily by the spinning ratio, whereas the influence of the Reynolds number remains comparatively weak over large parts of the investigated operating envelope. The resulting sensitivity atlas provides practical design guidance for passive flow-control concepts and demonstrates that robust solutions may exist over moderate operating ranges.