Analysis of Induced Vibrations in Fully-Developed Turbulent Pipe Flow Using a Coupled LES and FEA Approach

Abstract

This paper presents an approach using numerical simulations that have been used to characterize pipe vibration resulting from fully developed turbulent flow in a straight pipe. The vibration levels as indicated by; pipe surface displacement, velocity, and acceleration are characterized in terms of the influences of geometric and material properties of the pipe, and the effects of varying flow velocity, fluid density and viscosity have considered Reynold’s numbers ranging from 9.1×104 – 1.14×106. A large eddy simulation fluid model was coupled with a finite element structural model to simulate the fluid structure interaction using both one-way and two-way coupled techniques. The one-way technique passes the spatially and temporally varying wall pressure from a completed flow solution with fixed wall boundaries to the structural model. The structural model is then solved for wall displacements. The two-way technique involves the additional passing of wall displacement back to the fluid model which is then resolved given the new boundary location. The structural and fluid models are thus continually updated until convergence is reached at each time step. The results indicate a strong nearly quadratic dependence of pipe wall displacement on fluid average velocity. This relationship has also been verified in experimental investigations of pipe vibration. The results also indicate the pipe vibration has a power law type dependence on several variables. Dependencies on investigated variables are non-dimensionalized and assembled to develop a functional relationship that characterizes turbulence induced pipe vibration.