Abstract: The numerical method is used to calculate the flow around two square cylinders arranged side-by-side and the mean and fluctuating aerodynamic forces, and Strouhal numbers and power spectrum of lift force and drag force are obtained. An improved MAC method proposed by Chen Suqin et al.,which uses three order upwind scheme to discretize the convection term and uses multigrid method to solve the Poisson equation for pressure is applied to simulate the flow around two square cylinders arranged side-by-side. Results show that the interference characteristic of two square cylinders arranged side-by-side is completely different with the different spacing ratio. When the spacing ratio is smaller than a certain critical value, the gap flow between two cylinders is biased to one side in a stable or unstable manner.

Key words: wake interference, square cylinders in side-by-side arrangement, N-S equations, MAC method