Numerical simulations of Vortex Induced Vibration have been failing to duplicate accurately experimental data mostly due to the complexity of the physics involved in the real problem. Therefore, a careful and comprehensive investigation on CFD algorithms is still required to indicate the most suitable numerical scheme to handle such a complicate problem. Grid generation, boundary condition implementation, and coupling between the fluid flow governing equations and body motion equation are known to have strong influence on the qualities of the numerical results. This work presents results obtained from a long-term investigation featuring different CFD methods. The investigations enabled the selection of a very effective algorithm that showed an outstanding agreement between experiment and numerical simulation of the VIV phenomenon. Good agreement is obtained in the entire range of reduced velocity covered by the experimental investigations. The successful algorithm discussed here applies the Beam and Warming implicit scheme to solve the two-dimensional slightly compressible Navier–Stokes equations with the K-ε turbulence model to simulate the turbulent flow at the wake of the cylinder.
Vortex induced Vibration (VIV) plays a very important role in the offshore petroleum exploration. For example, risers used in oil extraction from the bottom of the sea to the offshore platforms are subjected to marine flows that may trigger dangerous VIV oscillations. Many researches have been spending a lot of efforts to understand the complicated flow around bluff bodies to control or even eliminate the VIV occurrence. Numerical simulations have been unsuccessful to predict the VIV amplitudes mainly because of the diffusive nature of the numerical methods. The present two-dimensional numerical investigation is a continuation of previous efforts trying to predict correct amplitudes of the VIV oscillations. The Beam and Warming scheme is used to solve the governing equations written in general curvilinear coordinates and the Boussinesq Hypothesis and the K-ε turbulence model are used to simulate the turbulent flow in the wake of a circular cylinder. The numerical results agreed qualitatively well with other data from the literature, but poor quantitative agreement was obtained confirming the difficulty of predicting amplitudes reported by other authors.
Author’s previous work Wanderley [1] presented an efficient numerical method to investigate VIV phenomenon on circular cylinders. The numerical model solves the unsteady Reynolds Average Navier–Stokes equations for slightly compressible flows using the Beam–Warming implicit factored scheme. In the present work, the effect of the turbulence model on the results is evaluated for both Baldwin Lomax and k-ε models. To demonstrate the quality of the numerical method, results for the transversal oscillation of a cylinder laterally supported by spring and damper are compared with experimental data. The application of the turbulence models showed the much better agreement of the k-ε model with the experimental results.
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