The fluidic pinball with symmetric forcing displays steady, periodic, quasi-periodic, and chaotic dynamics

We numerically investigate the fluidic pinball under symmetric forcing and find seven flow regimes under different rotation speeds. The fluidic pinball consists of three rotatable cylinders placed at the vertices of an equilateral triangle pointing upstream in a uniform oncoming flow. The starting point is the unforced asymmetric periodic vortex shedding at Reynolds number Re = 100 based on the cylinder diameter. The flow is symmetrically actuated by rotating the two rear cylinders at constant speed |b| up to three times the oncoming velocity in both directions. Counterclockwise (b > 0) and clockwise (b < 0) rotation of the bottom cylinder correspond to boat tailing and base bleeding, respectively. A total of seven distinct flow regimes are observed, including a steady flow, three symmetric/asymmetric periodic types of shedding, two symmetric/asymmetric quasi-periodic behaviors, and a chaotic dynamics. The vortex shedding features multiple coupled oscillator modes, including in-phase, anti-phase, and out-of-phase synchronization and non-synchronization. These shedding regimes are analyzed employing the temporal evolution of the aerodynamic forces and a dynamical mode decomposition of the wake flow. The kaleidoscope of unforced and forced dynamics promotes the fluidic pinball as a challenging modeling and control benchmark.