Vortex-induced Vibration Suppression Devices Research Articles

Towards an understanding of marine fouling effects on VIV of circular cylinders: Aggregation effects

The current study is aimed at getting a further insight into the changes the fouling brings to the Vortex Induced Vibration (VIV) of circular cylinders. Instead of regular patterns considered in previous studies, using the Poisson Cluster Process, an aggregated spatial distribution was considered for the artificial marine fouling. This is believed to better simulate the natural settlement of the marine biofouling. Different coverage ratios and fouling shapes plus regular and aggregated distributions were considered. The towing tank VIV tests were conducted on elastically mounted rigid cylinders. The Reynolds number ranged from around 7.8 × 103 to 4.9 × 104.On the whole, the maximum oscillation amplitude and the maximum lift force coefficient were meaningfully smaller in cylinders with either aggregated or regular fouling, as compared to those from the corresponding clean cylinder. Both aggregated and regular fouling were, thus, acting as VIV suppression devices. The suppression effectiveness increased by reduction in the coverage ratio of the artificial fouling. The effectiveness, however, reduced by the aggregation as compared to that with regular distribution. In general, the maximum VIV oscillations and the force coefficients appeared to be sensitive, in descending order, to coverage ratio, aggregation, flow incidence and the fouling shape.

A new method for strake configuration design of Steel Catenary Risers

A number of studies of vortex-induced vibration (VIV) having important effect on the fatigue performance of riser have performed analytically as well as experimentally in the last decade. However, there are few research results on the configuration design of VIV suppression devices such as fairings, strakes, and etc. Therefore, a systematic design procedure of strake configuration (i.e., location and length) using the modal approach for steel catenary riser (SCR) is proposed in this study. The proposed method considers the dominant mode for VIV suppression through modal analysis of bare riser to find appropriate location and various design parameters are introduced to calculate appropriate length of VIV suppression devices. From the numerical example of SCR, it is shown that the required strake length from the optimal location for VIV suppression of SCR is much shorter than that of the conventional method. This is achieved by staggered strake installation at the effective location. Furthermore, no additional calculations or engineering cost are required for the proposed method, because the proposed method follows exact same analysis procedure of the conventional one except using the modal information of bare SCR obtained from initial analysis of bare SCR.

Experimental and Numerical Studies of Vortex Induced Vibration on Cylinder

Study of vibrations due to vortex shedding (VIV) in the wake of a cylinder that is exposed to current or oscillatory flow is very important, especially for marine risers which are used to extract oil and gas from the sea bed. The phenomenon of vortex induced vibration (VIV) has been one of the major concerns for hydrodynamic researchers due to its potential ability to cause severe fatigue damage. The hydrodynamics of VIV is very complex and still not fully understood. In this paper, some results (amplitude over diameter, lift and drag coefficients) of high Reynolds VIV experiments that are performed in UTM towing tank with an in-house test set-up are presented. A circular cylinder of 114 mm in diameter and 3 min length was towed at constant speed through the basin at Reynolds numbers up to 1.1x105. Model tests with a stationary cylinder and tests with a freely vibrating cylinder were carried out to investigate the influence of VIV on drag coefficient. Later these results are compared with results obtained through 3D numerical simulation, LES is used to solve turbulence flow. It was found that CFD results showed similar trends with experimental results. Results of this paper can be very important to design riser system and future endeavor to perform similar kind of experiments. Successful numerical study of the VIV can also be fruitful for designing efficient VIV suppression devices.