Modal Characteristics of a Flexible Tube in Turbulent Axial Flow: a Numerical Approach and Validation with Experimental Data

Jeroen De Ridder, Joris Degroote, Katrien Van Tichelen, Paul Schuurmans, Jan Vierendeels, Steven Keijers

    Research outputpeer-review

    Abstract

    Flow-induced vibration is an important concern in the design of tube bundles. Due to the coupling of fluid motion and structural motion, instabilities such as flutter and divergence can arise. Next to the instabilities caused by the coupling of fluid motion and structural motion, turbulence could cause small amplitude vibrations, which in turn could give rise to long-term damage. Currently, the dynamical behavior of a tube in axial flow is studied by splitting the flow forces into inviscid and viscous components. The inviscid flow forces are determined from potential flow theory while the viscous flow forces come from empirical formulations. In this paper, a computational methodology is proposed to improve the accuracy of the predicted dynamical behaviour. In this methodology partitioned fluid-structure interaction simulations are performed to calculate the free vibration decay of a tube in axial flow. The tube is initially deformed according to an eigenmode in vacuum. Modal characteristics are then derived from the free vibration decay of the tube surrounded by the turbulent water flow. To validate this computational methodology a series of experiments is reproduced. In these experiments the frequency and damping of the fundamental mode of a solid brass cylinder were measured.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationComputational Methods for Coupled Problems in Science and Engineering V
    Place of PublicationSpain
    Pages669-676
    StatePublished - Jun 2013
    Event5th International Conference on Computational Methods for Coupled Problems in Science and Engineering - Santa Eulalia
    Duration: 17 Jun 201319 Jun 2013

    Conference

    Conference5th International Conference on Computational Methods for Coupled Problems in Science and Engineering
    Country/TerritorySpain
    CitySanta Eulalia
    Period2013-06-172013-06-19

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