Flow-induced vibrations of a tethered circular cylinder

One of the most basic examples of fluid-structure interaction is provided by a tethered body in a fluid flow. The tendency of a tethered buoy to oscillate when excited by waves is a well-known phenomenon; however, it has only recently been found that a submerged buoy will act in a similar fashion when exposed to a uniform flow at moderate Reynolds numbers, with a transverse peak-to-peak amplitude of approximately two diameters over a wide range of velocities. This paper presents results for the related problem of two-dimensional simulations of the flow past a tethered cylinder. The coupled Navier–Stokes equations and the equations of motion of the cylinder are solved using a spectral-element method. The response of the tethered cylinder system was found to be strongly influenced by the mean layover angle as this parameter determined if the oscillations would be dominated by in-line oscillations, transverse oscillations or a combination of the two. Three branches of oscillation are noted, an in-line branch, a transition branch and a transverse branch. Within the transition branch, the cylinder oscillates at the shedding frequency and modulates the drag force such that the drag signal is dominated by the lift frequency. It is found that the mean amplitude response is greatest at high reduced velocities, i.e., when the cylinder is oscillating predominantly transverse to the fluid flow. Furthermore, the oscillation frequency is synchronized to the vortex shedding frequency of a stationary cylinder, except at very high reduced velocities. Visualizations of the pressure and vorticity in the wake reveal the mechanisms behind the motion of the cylinder.     

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.     

Interaction of circular cylinder wake with a short asymmetrically located downstream plate

This study reveals the interaction patterns of separated shear layers from a circular cylinder with a short downstream plate and their reflection on the frequency and the formation length of the vortices from the cylinder as a function of plate location relative to the cylinder. The effect of horizontal (G/D) and vertical (Z/D) distances between the cylinder and the plate on the near wake is studied via Digital Particle Image Velocimetry (DPIV) in a water channel for Reynolds numbers of 200, 400 and 750, based on the cylinder diameter D. It is shown that the interaction of wake with the plate of length D can be categorized depending on the horizontal and the vertical distances between the cylinder and the plate. For the vertical distance range of Z/D ≤ 0.7, there is a critical horizontal spacing before which the shear layers from the cylinder are inhibited to form vortices in front of the plate. Resulting elongated recirculation region between the plate and the cylinder suggests modification of the absolutely unstable near wake of free circular cylinder in favor of convective instability. Z/D = 0.9 provides a passage from Z/D ≤ 0.7 to ≥1.1 and is associated with a dominant effect on the near-wake characteristics of interaction of shear layers from the cylinder with those from the downstream plate. For Z/D ≥ 1.1, there is again, yet a smaller critical horizontal spacing after which vortices interact with decreased downstream plate interference. In this vertical separation distance range, a gap flow between the plate and the cylinder plays a determining role on the formation length and St number of vortices for small horizontal spacing values.     

Three-dimensional computation for flow-induced vibrations of an upstream circular cylinder in two tandem circular cylinders

It is well known from a lot of experimental data that fluid forces acting on two tandem circular cylinders are quite different from those acting on a single circular cylinder. Therefore, we first present numerical results for fluid forces acting on two tandem circular cylinders, which are mounted at various spacings in a smooth flow, and second we present numerical results for flow-induced vibrations of the upstream circular cylinder in the tandem arrangement. The two circular cylinders are arranged at close spacing in a flow field. The upstream circular cylinder is elastically placed by damper-spring systems and moves in both the in-line and cross-flow directions. In such models, each circular cylinder is assumed as a rigid body. On the other hand, we do not introduce a turbulent model such as the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) or Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) models into the numerical scheme to compute the fluid flow. Our numerical procedure to capture the flow-induced vibration phenomena of the upstream circular cylinder is treated as a fluid-structure interaction problem in which the ideas of weak coupling is taken into consideration.     

Effects of a non-linear energy sink (NES) on vortex-induced vibrations of a circular cylinder

We investigate in detail the passive control of vortex-induced vibrations of a freely oscillating circular cylinder using a non-linear energy sink consisting of a secondary system having linear damping and an essential non-linear cubic stiffness. The loads on the cylinder are calculated using a direct numerical simulation of the incompressible flow over the cylinder using a parallel computational fluid dynamics code. A strongly coupled fluid structure control numerical model is used to determine the responses of the cylinder and the sink as well as the flow. We vary the sink parameters (mass and damping) and determine their effects on the response of the coupled system. We find multiple stable responses of the coupled system for different mass ratios and damping coefficient of the sink, depending on the initial conditions.     

Limit-cycle vibrations of a rolling cylinder

An explanation for a violent vibration of a high-speed textile yarn winder is proposed based on the hypothesis that variations in radial compliance around the circumference of the yarn cylinder make the smooth winding process unstable due to parametric excitation. The amplitude of the resulting limit cycle depends on the non-linearity in the radial compliance. An analytical procedure for predicting the limit-cycle amplitude is developed and applied to a specially constructed mechanical model of a yarn winder. The actual response of the mechanical model is accurately predicted when its measured dynamic properties are inserted in the analysis.     

On the force distribution along the axis of a flexible circular cylinder undergoing multi-mode vortex-induced vibrations

One of the main problems in predicting the response of flexible structures subjected to vortex shedding is that a totally reliable model for the fluid loading does not exist. It is also very difficult to measure the distributed force exerted by the fluid along the length of a marine riser without disturbing the system in some way. The methodology described here uses experimental response data obtained in a test programme undertaken in the Delta Flume in Holland during May 2003, linked to a finite element method model (FEM) of the riser. The length-to-diameter ratio of the model used was around 470, the mass ratio (mass/displaced mass) was 3 and the Reynolds number varied between 2800 and 28 000. By using the response data as the input to the numerical model, the instantaneous distributed in-line and transverse forces acting on a flexible cylinder can be studied.     

Finite amplitude vibrations of a circular plate

The problem of finite-amplitude, axisymmetric free and forced vibration of a circular plate is examined with various boundary conditions. The non-linear boundary-value problem is converted into the corresponding eigenvalue problem by elimination of the time variable. Then by a Newton-Raphson iteration scheme, and the concept of analytical continuation, the solution to the non-linear eigenvalue problem for the vibrations is obtained in a discrete form. It is seen that the removal of radial restraint causes drastic changes in the plate responses and the patterns of membrane stresses. Comparison with solutions based on the Berger assumption reveals the unsuitability of the assumption when the plate is not radially restrained.     

Bending of a circular cylinder containing a crack

The study of bending of cracked circular cylinders is of more significance. The bending of cylinders containing radical crack or cracks was discussed by refs. [1]–[4] and that of concentrically craked circular cylinders was studied by [5]. Continuing [6] and using complex variable methods in elasticity, this paper deals with the bending problems of a circular cylinder, containing an internal linear crack at any position under an acting force perpendicular to the crack. The general forms of displacements, stresses, and stressintensity factors, expressed in terms of series, are obtained and to this bending problems with small Ah are presented good approximate formulas for the stress-intensity factors whose variations with the center of the crack are analysed. Finally, the twist angle per unit length and the center of bending for the radically cracked circular cylinder, one of whose crack-tips is located at the origin, have been computed and the results are almost the same as that calculated in [1].