Experimental Study on the Avoidance and Suppression Criteria for the Vortex-Induced Vibration of a Cantilever Cylinder

Abstract

Experimental validation of the design guideline to prevent the failure of a thermometer well by vortex-induced vibration is presented, clarifying the effect of structure damping on displacement amplitudes of a cantilever cylinder. The available experimental data in piping are limited to those with small damping in water flow, because of the difficulty in increasing structure damping of the cantilever cylinders in experiments. In the present experiment, high-viscosity oil within cylinders is used to control their structure damping. Resulting values of reduced damping Cn are 0.49, 0.96, 1.23, 1.98, and 2.22. The tip displacements of the cylinder induced by vortex vibration were measured in the range of reduced velocity Vr from 0.7 to 5 (Reynolds number is 7.8×104 at Vr=1). Cylinders with reduced damping 0.49 and 0.96 showed vortex-induced vibration in the flow direction in the Vr>1 region. However, in cases of reduced damping of 1.23, 1.98, and 2.22, the vibration was suppressed to less than 1 percent diameter. It is confirmed that the criteria of “Vr<3.3 and Cn>1.2” for the prevention of vortex-induced vibration is reasonably applicable to a cantilever cylinder in a water flow pipe.