In the wake of a two-dimensional bluff body placed in a uniform stream, for sufficiently large but not too large flow velocity a distinctive pattern of vorticity is observed. The pattern consists of "vortices" of high vorticity surrounded by nearly irrotational fluid. These vortices are organized in two nearly parallel staggered rows of vortices of opposite direction of rotation. This pattern is called the von Kármán vortex street.
This thesis is a report on the analysis of a model for the von Kármán vortex street. The model is inviscid, incompressible, two-dimensional, and consists of vortices of finite area and uniform vorticity. The first part of this thesis contains a brief survey of the work on this problem, and an explanation of the approach used in the present work; the second part describes calculations of steady solutions of the Euler equations of this kind, and the third part describes an analysis of the stability of these steady solutions to two-dimensional disturbances.
The calculations indicate that the vortex wake can be stabilized by sufficiently large area of the vortices. Data are given which (to some approximation) will permit relating the street to the flow past a body; this is proposed as a suitable study for further work.
