Vortex-induced vibrations of a rigid circular cylinder

摘要

When a flexible body with bluff cross-section is immersed in a flow, the unsteady fluid forces accompanying the vortex-shedding phenomenon may lead to structural vibrations. These vortexinduced vibrations (VIV) occur through a mechanism of synchronization between flow unsteadiness and body displacement, referred to as lock-in. VIV are detrimental to many industrial systems, but may also be used as mechanical energy converter in the context of flow energy harvesting. In the present work, the VIV of a rigid circular cylinder mounted on a elastic support are investigated in various configurations on the basis of direct numerical simulations. Four aspects are studied. (i) The interaction mechanisms are first examined in the early turbulent regime, where VIV have been rarely studied numerically. The Reynolds number, based on the cylinder diameter and oncoming flow velocity, is set to 3900. A combined analysis of the structural responses and fluid forcing in the case where the cylinder is free to oscillate in the in-line and cross-flow directions, i.e. the directions parallel and perpendicular to the oncoming flow, is performed over a range of the reduced velocity (inverse of the oscillator natural frequency). (ii) The system behavior when the body is free to oscillate in a single direction only is also explored, shedding some light on the possible interactions between in-line and cross-flow motions in the two-degree-of-freedom (2-dof) case; the analysis shows for instance how large-amplitude in-line oscillations may be induced by cross-flow motion. (iii) The three-dimensional wake developing downstream of the oscillating body is analyzed in the 2-dof case as well as in the fixed body case. The spanwise flow patterns, which are analyzed quantitatively in terms of wavelength and amplitude of vorticity fluctuations, are differently altered in the shear-layer and wake regions, when the body oscillates. (iv) The last physical configuration involves a cylinder immersed in a flow linearly sheared in the cross-flow direction. The impact of the symmetry breaking induced by the shear, on the flow-structure system behavior, is explored. Different interaction regimes are uncovered in the shear rate - reduced velocity domain. Some of them are associated with a profound reconfiguration of the wake and a major alteration of the fluid forces.