Time domain simulation of vortex-induced vibrations in stationary and oscillating flows

This paper focuses on the further development of a previously published semi-empirical method for time domain simulation of vortex-induced vibrations (VIV). A new hydrodynamic damping formulation is given, and the necessary coefficients are found from experimental data. It is shown that the new model predicts the observed hydrodynamic damping in still water and for cross-flow oscillations in stationary incoming flow with high accuracy. Next, the excitation force model, which is one component of the total hydrodynamic force model, is optimized by simulating the VIV response of an elastic cylinder in a series of experiments with stationary flow. The optimization is performed by repeating the simulations until the best possible agreement with the experiments is found. The optimized model is then applied to simulate the cross-flow VIV of an elastic cylinder in oscillating flow, without introducing any changes to the hydrodynamic force modeling. By comparison with experiment, it is shown that the model predicts the frequency content, mode and amplitude of vibration with a high level of realism, and the amplitude modulations occurring at high Keulegan–Carpenter numbers are well captured. The model is also utilized to investigate the effect of increasing the maximum reduced velocity and the mass ratio of the elastic cylinder in oscillating flow. Simulations show that complex response patterns with multiple modes and frequencies appear when the maximum reduced velocity is increased. If, however, the mass ratio is increased by a factor of 5, a single mode dominates. This illustrates that, in oscillating flows, the mass ratio is important in determining the mode participation at high maximum reduced velocities.     

Two-degree-of-freedom vortex-induced vibrations of a circular cylinder at Re=3900

The vortex-induced vibrations of an elastically mounted circular cylinder are investigated on the basis of direct numerical simulations. The body is free to move in the in-line and cross-flow directions. The natural frequencies of the oscillator are the same in both directions. The Reynolds number, based on the free stream velocity and cylinder diameter, is set to 3900 and kept constant in all simulations. The behavior of the coupled flow-structure system is analyzed over a wide range of the reduced velocity (inverse of the natural frequency) encompassing the lock-in range, i.e. where body motion and flow unsteadiness are synchronized. The statistics of the structural responses and forces are in agreement with prior experimental results. Large-amplitude vibrations develop in both directions. The in-line and cross-flow oscillations are close to harmonic; they exhibit a frequency ratio of 2 and a variable phase difference across the lock-in range. Distinct trends are noted in the force-displacement phasing mechanisms in the two directions: a phase difference jump associated with a sign change of the effective added mass and a vibration frequency crossing the natural frequency is observed in the cross-flow direction, while no phase difference jump occurs in the in-line direction. Higher harmonic components arise in the force spectra; their contributions become predominant when the cylinder oscillates close to the natural frequency. The force higher harmonics are found to impact the transfer of energy between the flow and the moving body, in particular, by causing the emergence of new harmonics in the energy transfer spectrum.     

CFD modelling of the cross-flow through normal triangular tube arrays with one tube undergoing forced vibrations or fluidelastic instability

A CFD methodology involving structure motion and dynamic re-meshing has been optimized and applied to simulate the unsteady flow through normal triangular cylinder arrays with one single tube undergoing either forced oscillations or self-excited oscillations due to damping-controlled fluidelastic instability. The procedure is based on 2D URANS computations with a commercial CFD code, complemented with user defined functions to incorporate the motion of the vibrating tube. The simulation procedure was applied to several configurations with experimental data available in the literature in order to contrast predictions at different calculation levels. This included static conditions (pressure distribution), forced vibrations (lift delay relative to tube motion) and self-excited vibrations (critical velocity for fluidelastic instability). Besides, the simulation methodology was used to analyze the propagation of perturbations along the cross-flow and, finally, to explore the effect on the critical velocity of the Reynolds number, the pitch-to-diameter ratio and the degrees of freedom of the vibrating cylinder.     

Single-degree-of-freedom model of displacement in vortex-induced vibrations

In contrast to the approach of coupling a nonlinear oscillator that represents the lift force with the cylinder’s equation of motion to predict the amplitude of vortex-induced vibrations, we propose and show that the displacement can be directly predicted by a nonlinear oscillator without a need for a force model. The advantages of the latter approach include reducing the number of equations and, subsequently, the number of coefficients to be identified to predict displacements associated with vortex-induced vibrations. The implemented single-equation model is based on phenomenological representation of different components of the transverse force as required to initiate the vibrations and to limit their amplitude. Three different representations for specific flow and cylinder parameters yielding synchronization for Reynolds numbers between 104 and 114 are considered. The method of multiple scales is combined with data from direct numerical simulations to identify the parameters of the proposed models. The variations in these parameters with the Reynolds number, reduced velocity or force coefficient over the synchronization regime are determined. The predicted steady-state amplitudes are validated against those obtained from high-fidelity numerical simulations. The capability of the proposed models in assessing the performance of linear feedback control strategy in reducing the vibrations amplitude is validated with performance as determined from numerical simulations.

     

柔性圆柱涡激振动流体力系数识别及其特性

涡激振动是诱发海洋立管、浮式平台系泊缆和海底悬跨管道等柔性圆柱结构疲劳损伤的重要因素.目前,海洋工程中用于柔性圆柱涡激振动预报的流体力系数主要来源刚性圆柱横流向受迫振动的实验数据,存在一定缺陷和误差.本文综合考虑横流向与顺流向振动耦合作用,建立了柔性圆柱涡激振动流体力模型,运用有限元法和最小二乘法确定升力系数、脉动阻力系数和附加质量系数.为了准确识别柔性圆柱涡激振动流体力系数,设计并开展了拖曳水池模型实验,实验用柔性圆柱模型的质量比为1.82,长径比为195.5.通过与刚性圆柱流体力系数对比,深入分析了柔性圆柱流体力系数的特性.结果表明:柔性圆柱在一阶模态控制区,流体力系数随约化速度变化趋势与刚性圆柱大致相似;二阶模态控制区,升力系数和脉动阻力系数显著增大;附加质量系数在响应频率较低时与振动位移的相关性增强;当响应频率较低时,振动位移较大区域为能量耗散区,当响应频率较高时,振动位移较大区域为能量输入区.     

Numerical investigation of two-degree-of-freedom vortex-induced vibration of a circular cylinder in oscillatory flow

Two-degree-of-freedom (2dof) vortex-induced vibration (VIV) of a circular cylinder in oscillatory flow is investigated numerically. The direction of the oscillatory flow is perpendicular to the spanwise direction of the circular cylinder. Simulations are carried out for the Keulegan–Carpenter (KC) numbers of 10, 20 and 40 and the Reynolds numbers ranging from 308 to 9240. The ratio of the Reynolds number to the reduced velocity is 308. At KC=10, the amplitude of the primary frequency component is much larger than those of other frequency components. Most vibrations for KC=20 and 40 have multiple frequencies. The primary frequency of the response in the cross-flow direction decreases with the increasing reduced velocity, except when the reduced velocity is very small. Because the calculated primary frequencies of the response in the cross-flow direction are multiple of the oscillatory flow frequency in most of the calculated cases, the responses are classified into single-frequency mode, double-frequency mode, triple frequency mode, etc. If the reduced velocity is in the range where the VIV is transiting from one mode to another, the vibration is very irregular.For each KC number the range of the reduced velocity can be divided into a cross-flow-in-phase regime (low V_r), where the response and the hydrodynamic force in the cross-flow direction synchronize, and a cross-flow-anti-phase regime (high V_r), where the response and the hydrodynamic force in the cross-flow direction are in anti-phase with each other. The boundary values of V_r between the cross-flow-in-phase and the cross-flow-anti-phase regimes are 7, 9 and 11 for KC=10, 20 and 40, respectively. For KC=20, another cross-flow-anti-phase regime is found between 15≤V_r≤19. Similarly the in-line-in-phase and the in-line-anti-phase regimes are also identified for the response in the in-line direction. It is found that the boundary value of V_r between the in-line-in-phase and the in-line-anti-phase regimes is greater than that in the cross-flow direction. They are 14 and 26 for KC=10 and 20, respectively. Maximum amplitude occurs at the boundary value of the reduced velocity between in-phase regime and anti-phase regime in both the x- and the y-directions.     

Hydrodynamics of a flexible cylinder under modulated vortex-induced vibrations

Both amplitude modulation and frequency modulation of Vortex-induced Vibration (VIV) are observed in a recent model test of a flexible cylinder under oscillatory flow, but its hydrodynamics has not yet been broached in detail. This paper employs the Forgetting Factor Least Squares (FF-LS) method for identification of time-varying hydrodynamics of a flexible cylinder under modulated VIV. The FF-LS method’s applicability to accurately identify time-varying hydrodynamic coefficients is demonstrated through an elastically mounted rigid cylinder under flow with a given modulated motion. Furthermore, we propose a framework to predict instantaneous amplitude (envelope) and frequency using time-varying hydrodynamic coefficients to establish their analytical relationship. This prediction method is further extended to a highly tensioned flexible cylinder through Fourier series expansion in the spatial domain. By performing the identification procedure for all sampled data of a flexible cylinder undergoing oscillatory flow, we obtain the corresponding time-varying hydrodynamics in the cross-flow direction considering the amplitude and frequency modulation. The results show that, under modulated VIV, hydrodynamic coefficients of the flexible cylinder also show time-varying characteristics. We further investigate differences between identified hydrodynamic coefficients and those obtained from the database of a cylinder with modulated motion under flow. Prediction results using these identified time-varying coefficients reveal that the time-varying excitation coefficients mainly influence the amplitude modulation, and the time-varying added-mass coefficients contain the major information of frequency modulation. These results further suggest including the temporal derivative of the instantaneous amplitude as one determining parameter in building databases to improve the prediction of modulated VIV.     

Active vortex-induced vibration control of a circular cylinder at low Reynolds numbers using an adaptive fuzzy sliding mode controller

An adaptive fuzzy sliding mode control (AFSMC) scheme is applied to actively suppress the two-dimensional vortex-induced vibrations (VIV) of an elastically mounted circular cylinder, free to move in in-line and cross-flow directions. Laminar flow regime at Re=90, low non-dimensional mass with equal natural frequencies in both directions, and zero structural damping coefficients, are considered. The natural oscillator frequency is matched with the vortex shedding frequency of a stationary cylinder at Re=100. The strongly coupled unsteady fluid/cylinder interactions are captured by implementing the moving mesh technology through integration of an in-house developed User Define Function (UDF) into the main code of the commercial CFD solver Fluent. The AFSMC approach comprises of a fuzzy system designed to mimic an ideal sliding-mode controller, and a robust controller intended to compensate for the difference between the fuzzy controller and the ideal one. The fuzzy system parameters as well as the uncertainty bound of the robust controller are adaptively tuned online. A collaborative simulation scheme is realized by coupling the control model implemented in Matlab/Simulink to the plant model constructed in Fluent, aiming at determination of the transverse control force required for complete suppression of the cylinder streamwise and cross-flow oscillations. The simulation results demonstrate the high performance and effectiveness of the adopted control algorithm in attenuating the 2D-VIV of the elastic cylinder over a certain flow velocity range. Also, the enhanced transient performance of the AFSM control strategy in comparison with a conventional PID control law is demonstrated. Furthermore, the effect of control action on the time evolution of vortex shedding from the cylinder is discussed. In particular, it is observed that the coalesced vortices in the far wake region of the uncontrolled cylinder, featuring the C(2S)-type vortex shedding characteristic mode, are ultimately forced to switch to the classical von Kármán vortex street of 2S-type mode, displaying wake vortices of moderately weaker strengths very similar to those of the stationary cylinder. Lastly, robustness of AFSMC is verified against relatively large structural uncertainties as well as with respect to a moderate deviation in the uniform inlet flow velocity.     

Phenomena and modeling of piezoelectric energy harvesting from freely oscillating cylinders

We investigate energy harvesting from vortex-induced vibrations of a freely moving rigid circular cylinder with a piezoelectric transducer attached to its transverse degree of freedom. The power levels that can be generated from these vibrations and variations of these levels with the freestream velocity are determined. A mathematical model that accounts for the coupled lift force, cylinder motion, and harvested voltage is presented. Linear analysis is performed to determine the effect of the electrical load resistance of the transducer on the natural frequency of the cylinder and the onset of synchronization (the shedding frequency is equal to the cylinder oscillating frequency) region. The impact of the nonlinearities on the cylinder response and harvested energy is investigated. The results show that the load resistance shifts the onset of synchronization to higher freestream velocities. For two different system parameters, the results show that the nonlinearities result in a hardening behavior for some values of the load resistance.     

VORTEX-INDUCED VIBRATIONS OF AN ELASTIC CIRCULAR CYLINDER

A numerical study of a uniform flow past an elastic circular cylinder using the discrete vortex method incorporating the vortex-in-cell (VIC) technique has been undertaken. The Reynolds number is kept at 200 for all calculations and the cylinder motion is modelled by a spring–damper–mass system. The fluid motion and the structural responses are solved in an iterative way so that the interactions between the fluid and the structure can be accounted for properly. Analyses of the cylinder responses, the damping, the induced forces, the vortex shedding frequency and the vortex structure in the wake have been carried out. The results show that fluid damping is responsible for a limit-cycle oscillation behaviour even when the system natural frequency is close to the vortex-shedding frequency. Reasonable agreement with previous experimental data and computational results is obtained in the comparison of the amplitude of the limit-cycle oscillations. The results further show that the cylinder oscillations could be as large as 0·57 diameter under certain flow conditions and structural properties. Finally, it is shown that a one-degree-of-freedom structural model yields results that are only in qualitative agreement with a two-degree-of-freedom model. In other words, the streamwise oscillations also have a substantial effect on the transverse vibrations and their characteristics.     

Lock-in of the vortex-induced vibrations of a long tensioned beam in shear flow

The occurrence of lock-in, defined as the local synchronization between the vortex shedding frequency and the cross-flow structural vibration frequency, is investigated in the case of a tensioned beam of length to diameter ratio 200, free to move in both the in-line and cross-flow directions, and immersed in a linear shear current. Direct numerical simulation is employed at three Reynolds numbers, from 110 to 1100, so as to include the transition to turbulence in the wake. The Reynolds number influences the response amplitudes, but in all cases we observed similar fluid–structure interaction mechanisms, resulting in high-wavenumber vortex-induced vibrations consisting of a mixture of standing and traveling wave patterns.Lock-in occurs in the high oncoming velocity region, over at least 30% of the cylinder length. In the case of multi-frequency response, at any given spanwise location lock-in is principally established at one of the excited vibration frequencies, usually the locally predominant one. The spanwise patterns of the force and added mass coefficients exhibit different behaviors within the lock-in versus the non-lock-in region. The spanwise zones where the flow provides energy to excite the structural vibrations are located mainly within the lock-in region, while the flow damps the structural vibrations in the non-lock-in region.     

A nonlinear model of vortex-induced forces on an oscillating cylinder in a fluid flow

A nonlinear model relating the imposed motion of a circular cylinder, submerged in a fluid flow, to the transverse force coefficient is presented. The nonlinear fluid system, featuring vortex shedding patterns, limit cycle oscillations and synchronisation, is studied both for swept sine and multisine excitation. A nonparametric nonlinear distortion analysis (FAST) is used to distinguish odd from even nonlinear behaviour. The information which is obtained from the nonlinear analysis is explicitly used in constructing a nonlinear model of the polynomial nonlinear state-space (PNLSS) type. The latter results in a reduction of the number of parameters and an increased accuracy compared to the generic modelling approach where typically no such information of the nonlinearity is used. The obtained model is able to accurately simulate time series of the transverse force coefficient over a wide range of the frequency–amplitude plane of imposed cylinder motion.     

Grid‐free surface vorticity method applied to flow induced vibration of flexible cylinders

In order to study cross flow induced vibration of heat exchanger tube bundles, a new fluid–structure interaction model based on surface vorticity method is proposed. With this model, the vibration of a flexible cylinder is simulated at Re=2.67 × 10⁴, the computational results of the cylinder response, the fluid force, the vibration frequency, and the vorticity map are presented. The numerical results reproduce the amplitude‐limiting and non‐linear (lock‐in) characteristics of flow‐induced vibration. The maximum vibration amplitude as well as its corresponding lock‐in frequency is in good agreement with experimental results. The amplitude of vibration can be as high as 0.88D for the case investigated. As vibration amplitude increases, the amplitude of the lift force also increases. With enhancement of vibration amplitude, the vortex pattern in the near wake changes significantly. This fluid–structure interaction model is further applied to simulate flow‐induced vibration of two tandem cylinders and two side‐by‐side cylinders at similar Reynolds number. Promising and reasonable results and predictions are obtained. It is hopeful that with this relatively simple and computer time saving method, flow induced vibration of a large number of flexible tube bundles can be successfully simulated. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Application of Differing Forcing Function Models on Simulated Flow Past an Oscillating Cylinder in a Uniform Low Reynolds Number Flow

A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model is presented for the uniform viscous two dimensional flow past an oscillating cylinder at low Reynolds number. Numerical simulations are made to study the effect of differing forced induced oscillation mechanisms with a large range of cylinder forcing frequencies. In the first case sinusoidal velocity slip boundary conditions are adopted for the cylinder surface to simulate cylinder oscillation. The implication suggests that no modification or additional term need to be added to the Navier-Stokes equations. In the second case this time extra body force terms which are assumed to account for velocity effects due to cylinder movement are included in the Navier-Stokes equations with the imposition of same boundary conditions. Drag and lift coefficients are extracted from present numerical results and other detailed computations of these coefficients are made at a Reynolds number of 80 and an amplitude-to diameter ratio 0.14. The results are found to be in agreement with each other at low force driving frequencies below and near lock-in. However, differences are found at higher frequencies above lock-in. Agreement are also found with experimental results at some frequency ranges.     

串列布置三圆柱涡激振动频谱特性研究

对串列三圆柱体双自由度涡激振动问题进行了数值计算, 并分析了雷诺数、固有频率比和约化速度对串列三圆柱体结构动力响应及频谱特性的影响. 研究发现: 雷诺数、频率比对上游圆柱的振幅和流体力系数的影响较小. 中游圆柱频率锁定区域随着雷诺数的增大而增大, 其动力响应受上游圆柱尾流的影响较大, 但频率比的影响较小. 同时, 流体力系数在约化速度较小时受雷诺数和频率比的影响较大. 另外, 下游圆柱的振幅和流体力系数受雷诺数及频率比的影响较大. 雷诺数、频率比和约化速度对圆柱流体力系数能量谱密度(PSD)曲线中主峰幅值、频谱成分及波动性的影响较大. 流体力系数PSD曲线波动性的增强, 导致圆柱运动轨迹会从"8"字形转变成不规则形状. 当频率比为2.0时, 上游圆柱尾流出现P$+$S模式, 导致其发生非对称运动, 且升、阻力系数PSD曲线主峰重合. 最后, 激励荷载平均功率值随约化速度的变化趋势与对应的结构动力响应的变化类似. 在同一约化速度区间内, 结构振动响应的强弱与位移的平均功率值成正比. 对不同约化速度区间内的升力系数功率谱密度分析时, 振动频率比($f_{s}/f_{n, y})$对结构振动响应的影响更大.      

Shear flow induced vibrations of long slender cylinders with a wake oscillator model

A time domain model is presented to study the vibrations of long slender cylinders placed in shear flow. Long slender cylinders such as risers and tension legs are widely used in the field of ocean engineering. They are subjected to vortex-induced vibrations(VIV) when placed within a transverse incident flow. A three dimensional model coupled with wake oscillators is formulated to describe the response of the slender cylinder in cross-flow and in-line directions. The wake oscillators are distributed along the cylinder and the vortex-shedding frequency is derived from the local current velocity. A non-linear fiuid force model is accounted for the coupled effect between cross-flow and in-line vibrations. The comparisons with the published experimental data show that the dynamic features of VIV of long slender cylinder placed in shear flow can be obtained by the proposed model,such as the spanwise average displacement,vibration frequency,dominant mode and the combination of standing and traveling waves. The simulation in a uniform flow is also conducted and the result is compared with the case of nonuniform flow. It is concluded that the flow shear characteristic has significantly changed the cylinder vibration behavior.     

利用O型环抑制圆柱绕法流涡脱落的数值研究

圆柱绕流涡脱落诱发较大的振动和声,如何有效地抑制值得关注.利用大涡模拟技术求解了Navier-Stokes方程,得到了涡脱落频率,升力脉动幅值及平均阻力系数.计算表明二维模拟不能体现流动基本特征,三维计算与实验吻合较好.为了抑制涡脱落,在直径为D的圆柱表面装入间距为1D,直径为0.0167D的O型环.通过升力、速度谱分析以及柱向横截面流场分析可知,在光滑圆柱外表面加入O型环能诱发流体边界层分离,有效地抑制涡脱落现象,升力脉动和观测点速度脉动幅值几乎完全消失,阻力系数也略微降低,适合在实际工程中采用.     

Vibrations of a cylinder in a uniform flow in the presence of a no-slip side-wall

A circular cylinder placed in a uniform flow, and that spans the entire length between two side walls, may experience either parallel or oblique vortex shedding depending on the end conditions. It was shown by Mittal and Sidharth (2014) that the spatio-temporal periodicity of the oblique vortex shedding results in constant-in-time force experienced by the cylinder. On the contrary, parallel vortex shedding leads to fluid force that fluctuates with time. The free vibrations of a circular cylinder, in the presence of a wall, are investigated. For comparison, computations with end walls, where a slip condition on velocity is specified, are also carried out. The Reynolds number, based on the diameter of the cylinder and free-stream speed of the flow, is Re=100. The initial condition for the free vibrations is the fully developed unsteady flow past a stationary cylinder with oblique shedding. It is found that as the amplitude of vibration of the cylinder builds up, the vortices shed from the cylinder align with its axis leading to parallel shedding. The response of the cylinder is associated with two branches: initial and lower. On the lower branch, the response of the cylinder is virtually identical from two- and three-dimensional computations. The flow as well as the response is different on the initial branch and outside the synchronization regime. Forced vibrations confirm the phenomena.     

Free vibrations of an elastic cylinder in a cross flow and their effects on the near wake

Fluid-structure interactions resulting from the free vibrations of a two-dimensional elastic cylinder in a cross flow are not well understood. Experimental data pertaining to the interaction behavior is rather scarce, especially that related to the phenomenon of synchronization where the vortex shedding frequency is approximately equal to the natural frequency of the fluid-structure system. The present investigation attempts to examine this problem experimentally using a laser vibrometer to assess the bending displacements and a laser Doppler anemometer to measure the velocities in the wake. Experiments were carried out over a range of reduced velocities. The reduced velocity was first varied by using cylinders of different materials and then by changing the free stream velocity, while maintaining the cylinder diameter constant. A proper choice of materials and reduced velocity allowed the synchronization phenomenon to be investigated. For the range of reduced velocity investigated, the vibration amplitude of the cylinder is finite, even at synchronization, and increases with reduced velocity. The results further show that more than one mode of vibration is excited away from synchronization; however, only the first mode is evident at synchronization. In addition, the near-wake flow behind the elastic cylinder, at three different Reynolds numbers in the sub-critical range, was measured in detail and the data was used to analyse the vibration effects on the mean and turbulence field compared to those measured behind a relatively rigid cylinder at the same Reynolds numbers. It is found that cylinder vibrations have little or no effect on the mean drag and the normalized mean field. However, cylinder vibrations enhance turbulent mixing, thus resulting in a substantial increase in the turbulent intensities. This implies that the large-scale vortical motion is also affected. Nevertheless, turbulence structure in the inertial sub-range is not affected by cylinder vibrations. The slopes of the velocity spectra in this range is still measured to be −5/3 for the freely vibrating cylinders investigated. Received: 20 December 1998/Accepted: 20 September 1999     

Rain-wind-induced vibrations of a simple oscillator

In this paper a relatively simple mechanical oscillator which may be used to study rain-wind-induced vibrations of stay cables of cable-stayed bridges is considered. In recent publications, mention is made of vibrations of (inclined) stay cables which are excited by a wind field containing rain drops. The rain drops that hit the cables generate a rivulet on the surface of the cable. The presence of flowing water on the cable changes the cross section of the cable experienced by the wind field. A symmetric flow pattern around the cable with circular cross section may become asymmetric due to the presence of the rivulet and may consequently induce a lift force as a mechanism for vibration. During the motion of the cable the position of rivulet(s) may vary as the motion of the cable induces an additional varying aerodynamic force perpendicular to the direction of the wind field. It seems not too easy to model this phenomenon, several author state that there is no model available yet.The idea to model this problem is to consider a horizontal cylinder supported by springs in such a way that only one degree of freedom, i.e. vertical vibration is possible. We consider a ridge on the surface of the cylinder parallel to the axis of the cylinder. Additionally, let the cylinder with ridge be able to oscillate, with small amplitude, around the axis such that the oscillations are excited by an external force.It may be clear that the small amplitude oscillations of the cylinder and hence of the ridge induce a varying lift and drag force. In this approach it is assumed that the motion of the ridge models the dynamics of the rivulet(s) on the cable. By using a quasi-steady approach to model the aerodynamic forces, one arrives at a non-linear second-order equation displaying three different kinds of excitation mechanisms: self-excitation, parametric excitation and ordinary forcing. The first results of the analysis of the equation of motion show that even in a linear approximation for certain values of the parameters involved, stable periodic motions are possible. In the relevant cases where in linear approximation unstable periodic motions are found, results of an analysis of the non-linear equation are presented.