Vortex Induced Vibration of Circular Cylinder With Two Degrees of Freedom: Computational Fluid Dynamics vs. Reduced-Order Models

Abstract

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) studies capturing vortex-induced vibration (VIV) phenomena in a wide range of both the hydrodynamics and the structural parameters are important, because the analysis outcomes can be applied to numerical prediction codes, complement experimental measurement results and suggest a modification of some practical design guidelines. Nevertheless, in spite of many published studies on VIV, CFD studies for two dimensional coupled cross-flow/in-line VIV even with two degrees of freedom (2-DoF), are still quite limited. More CFD studies which can control the equivalence of system fluid-structure parameters in different directions with reduced uncertainty are needed to improve the numerical model empirical coefficients and capability to effectively match numerical predictions and experimental outcomes. This paper presents a CFD study on the 2-DoF VIV of elastically mounted circular cylinder with a low mass ratio (m* = 2.55). The Reynolds number is fixed to be 150 and the reduced flow velocity parameter is varied by changing the cross-flow natural frequency. To model the problem, two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations coupled with linear structural equations in the in-line and cross-flow directions are solved. Particular attention is paid to the determination of maximum attainable amplitudes and the associated instantaneous lift and drag forces and hydrodynamic coefficients. These results are compared with the obtained results from alternative numerical prediction outcomes using new reduced-order models with four nonlinearly coupled wake-structure oscillators (Srinil and Zanganeh, 2012). Some qualitative and quantitative aspects are discussed. Overall, the important VIV characteristics are captured including the dual-resonance and figure-of-eight trajectories. Through the flow visualization study, it is found that as the dual-resonance is excited, a P+S wake pattern appears.