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Updated: May 30, 2026

Preparation of Free-Surface Hyperbolic Water Vortices
Published on: July 28, 2023
Stabilization of vortices in the wake of a circular cylinder using harmonic forcing
Georges C Chamoun1, Frank Schilder, Morten Brøns
1Department of Mathematics, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby DK-2800, Denmark.
Abstract:
We explore whether vortex flows in the wake of a fixed circular cylinder can be stabilized using harmonic forcing. We use Föppl's point vortex model augmented with a harmonic point source-sink mechanism which preserves conservation of mass and leaves the system Hamiltonian. We discover a region of Lyapunov-stable vortex motion for an appropriate selection of parameters. We identify four unique parameters that affect the stability of the vortices: the uniform flow velocity, vortex equilibrium positions, forcing amplitude, and forcing frequency. We assess the robustness of the controller using a Poincaré section.
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