The turbulent flow around cylinders of rectangular cross-section is a classical configuration (see, e.g. [1] for the AR = 1 case), that is still of interest both at the fundamental and applied levels. Specifically, the AR = 5 case has become a benchmark in the field of wind engineering applications, the BARC, which has been extensively studied in, e.g., [2, 3]. Beyond a large enough Reynolds number Re, these flows share several features [4]: from the forward stagnation point, a laminar boundary layer forms, which upon turning the leading corner transforms into a separated shear layer. A Kelvin-Helmholtz instability ensues, producing downstream vortices that eventually experience turbulence transition, and this at shorter and shorter distances from the leading corner as Re increases. The major difference arises regarding the cylinder aspect ratio, as in longer bodies, the separated shear layer reattaches to the top/bottom walls –bounding a recirculating bubble– before separating again at the trailing corners, creating a turbulent wake with Von Karman vortices. On shorter bodies, however, the turbulent shear layer emanating from the leading corner merges directly on the wake, and a tight coupling between both instability sources is observed. In this contribution, we will consider Direct Numerical Simulation of the turbulent flow around rectangular cross section cylinders of aspect ratii AR ∈ [1, 3] at Re = 3000, see Fig.1, The long-term goal is to assess the dependence on the A of the flow dynamics at the cylinder side and the wake, establishing connections with the well studied BARC (AR = 5) case [3]. REFERENCES [1] F.X. Trias et al., Comput. & Fluids, Vol. 123, pp. 97–98, 2018, 10.1016/j.compfluid.2015.09.013. [2] A. Cimarelli et al., J. Fluid Mech., Vol. 857, pp. 907–936, 2018, 10.1017/jfm.2018.772. [3] A. Chiarini et al., F. Turb. Combust., Vol. 107, pp. 875–899, 2021, 10.1007/s10494-021-00254-1. [4] D.M. Moore et al., J. Fluid Mech., Vol. 875, pp. 543–575, 2019, 10.1017/jfm.2019.480.