Dynamic stability of elastically supported pipes conveying pulsating fluid

Abstract

The effect of support flexibility on the dynamic behaviour of pipes conveying fluid is investigated for both steady and pulsatile flows. The pipes are built-in at the upstream end and supported at the other by both a translational and a rotational spring. For the steady flow condition, the critical flow velocities, the frequencies and flow induced damping patterns that are associated with the different vibration modes of selected pipe systems are determined as functions of the flow velocity. The results from steady flow cases show that the pipes may first lose stability by either buckling or flutter, depending on the values of the rotational and translational spring constants and their relative magnitudes. In the case of pulsatile flow, the Floquet theory is utilized for the stability analysis of the selected pipe-fluid systems. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the effects of the amount of translational and rotational resiliences at the elastic support on the regions of parametric and combination resonances of the pipes. The results more of the interesting aspects of the behaviour of non-conservative systems.