Dynamical bifurcation and synchronization of two nonlinearly coupled fluid-conveying pipes

Abstract

The coupling effects of fluid-conveying pipe bundle are important issues due to the interactions between the pipes by connecting structures and/or flow environment. However, the researches on the dynamical synchronization of coupled pipes are still insufficient. This paper focuses on the synchronization phenomenon of two equivalent fluid-conveying pipes coupled by a nonlinear spring. The system equations were discretized by applying Galerkin expansion method, and numerical solutions were obtained for two-pipe system with simply supported conditions. The results indicated that the two-pipe system existed several different synchronization patterns including perfect, imperfect, lag, strange synchronization and failed pattern. The results also revealed that the system dynamic behavior is sensitive to flow or structure parameters of the individual pipe. By means of selecting the coupling spring parameters or designing proper structure configurations, the two pipes can be synchronized to similar dynamical states and vibration behaviors, which might be much simpler than that of the individual pipe. Thus, this finding provides theoretically a possible, even effective way to control the two-pipe vibrations and to achieve target dynamics simultaneously.