Experimental investigation on flow field around a flapping plate with single degree of freedom

Abstract

Undesirable flapping motion of discs can cause the failure of swing check valves in nuclear passive safety systems. Time-resolved particle image velocimetry (PIV) was employed to investigate the flow characteristics around a free-to-rotate plate and the motion response, with the Reynolds numbers, based on the hydraulic diameter of the channel, from 1.32 × 104 to 3.95 × 104. Appreciable flapping motion (±3.52°) appeared at the Reynolds number of 2.6 × 104 with the frequency of 5.08 Hz. In the low-Reynolds-number case, the plate showed negligible flapping. In the high-Reynolds-number case, the deflection angle increased with reduced flapping amplitude. The torque from the fluid determined the flapping amplitude. In the low-Reynolds-number case, Karman vortices were absent. With increasing Reynolds numbers, Karman vortices developed behind the plate with larger deflection angles. Strong interaction between the wake flow from the leading and trailing edge of the plate was observed. Based on power spectrum density (PSD) analysis, the vortex shedding frequency coincided with the flapping frequency, and the amplitude was positively correlated to the strength of the vortices. Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) modes evince that, in the case of appreciable motion, coherent structures exhibited a larger spatial scale, enhancing the magnitude of the external torque on the plate.