Modeling of the phase lag causing fluidelastic instability in a parallel triangular tube array

Fluidelastic instability is considered a critical flow induced vibration mechanism in tube and shell heat exchangers. It is believed that a finite time lag between tube vibration and fluid response is essential to predict the phenomenon. However, the physical nature of this time lag is not fully understood. This paper presents a fundamental study of this time delay using a parallel triangular tube array with a pitch ratio of 1.54. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was developed and validated experimentally in an attempt to investigate the interaction between tube vibrations and flow perturbations at lower reduced velocities U_r=1–6 and Reynolds numbers Re=2000–12 000. The numerical predictions of the phase lag are in reasonable agreement with the experimental measurements for the range of reduced velocities U_g/fd=6–7. It was found that there are two propagation mechanisms; the first is associated with the acoustic wave propagation at low reduced velocities, U_r<2, and the second mechanism for higher reduced velocities is associated with the vorticity shedding and convection. An empirical model of the two mechanisms is developed and the phase lag predictions are in reasonable agreement with the experimental and numerical measurements. The developed phase lag model is then coupled with the semi-analytical model of Lever and Weaver to predict the fluidelastic stability threshold. Improved predictions of the stability boundaries for the parallel triangular array were achieved. In addition, the present study has explained why fluidelastic instability does not occur below some threshold reduced velocity.