Experimental Study on the Effect of the Angle of Attack on the Flow-Induced Vibration of a Harbor Seal’s Whisker

Abstract

A harbor seal’s whisker is able to sense the trailing vortices of marine organisms due to its unique three-dimensional wavy shape, which suppresses the vibrations caused by its own vortex-shedding, while exciting large-amplitude and synchronized vibrations in a wake flow. This provides insight into the development of whisker-inspired sensors, which have broad applications in the fields of ocean exploration and marine surveys. However, the harbor seal’s whisker may lose its vibration suppression ability when the angle of attack (AoA) of the incoming flow is large. In order to explore the flow-induced vibration (FIV) features of a harbor seal’s whisker at various angles of attack (θ=0–90∘), this study experimentally investigates the effect of AoA on the vibration response of a whisker model in a wide range of reduced velocities (Ur = 3–32.2) and the Reynolds number, Re = 400–7000, in a circulating water flume. Meanwhile, for the sake of comparison, the FIV response of an elliptical cylinder with the same equivalent diameters is also presented. The results indicate that an increase in AoA enhances the vibration amplitude and expands the lock-in range for both the whisker model and the elliptical cylinder. The whisker model effectively suppresses vibration responses at θ=0∘ due to its unique three-dimensional wavy shape. However, when θ≥30∘, the wavy surface structure gradually loses its suppression ability, resulting in large-amplitude vibration responses similar to those of the elliptical cylinder. For θ = 30∘ and 45∘, the vibration responses of the whisker model and the elliptical cylinder undergo three vibration regimes, i.e., vortex-induced vibration, transition response, and turbulent-induced vibration, with the increasing Ur. However, at θ = 60∘ and 90∘, the vortex-shedding gradually controls the FIV response, and only the vortex-induced vibration is observed.