Numerical investigation of vortex induced vibrations on cylinders

Abstract

Abstract The paper addresses Vortex Induced Vibrations (VIV) caused by tower vortex shedding through LES simulations of a wind tunnel experiment. A high-fidelity (HiFi), Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) framework for aeroelastic analysis of 3D flexible cylinders is established, based on the open-source Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code OpenFOAM and the coupling library preCICE. In the present study, the FSI framework is employed with the aim to replicate a low Reynolds (Re=26000) forced vibrations wind tunnel experiment of a circular cross-section rigid cylinder. The paper compares predictions of the aerodynamic damping of the oscillating cylinder for different oscillation frequencies within the lock-in range and amplitudes against experimental results. While the model consistently predicts the lock-in range of frequencies and the trends in the variation of the aerodynamic damping with the oscillation amplitude, it falls short of accurately capturing the maximum value of the aerodynamic damping at the onset of lock-in.