Controlling the Benard-von Karman instability in the wake of a cylinder bydriving the pressure at the front stagnation point

We report an experimental method for inhibiting vortex shedding generated b y the Benard-von Karman instability (BvK) in the wake of a cylinder. We sho w that monitoring: the pressure at the front stagnation point of a circular cylinder can completely suppress the Benard-von Karman instability for Rey nolds numbers in the range 48.5 < Re < 150. We then study some properties o f the BvK instability in the presence of suction at the front stagnation po int and mention that this method can be used to generate well-controlled lo calized vortical structures in the form of vortex pairs.