posted on 2017-02-17, 03:03authored byZhao, Jisheng
This thesis investigates cross-flow flow-induced vibration of elastically mounted rigid circular and square cylinders with low mass and damping ratio over a range of low and vibration parameters. In particular, two typical body oscillator phenomena of flow-induced vibration, vortex-induced vibration and galloping, are studied experimentally. Thus, the study consists of two main parts. The first part, using simultaneous displacement, force and vorticity measurements, investigates the dynamic response of a circular cylinder undergoing transverse free vortex-induced vibrations and controlled trajectory-following vibrations. The second part characterises the amplitude and frequency responses of a square cylinder with angle of attack variation. Despite extensive work has been undertaken to understand the fundamental characteristics of free and forced vibrations of a circular cylinder, there are still a number of unresolved questions in the literature concerning the similarities and differences between the free and forced vibration cases. In order to directly compare these two vibration cases, a low-friction air-bearing rig and a real-time feedback control system were therefore designed and implemented in experiments. The major results obtained show that the transverse lift force and the decomposed vortex force experienced by a cylinder forced to follow the trajectory of free VIV are identical to the free vibration case, when both the total phase and the vortex phase relative to the body motion are constantly stable. However, significant differences between the two vibration cases are found at a reduced velocity located in the middle upper branch of VIV where largest-scale body vibration occur with complex switching phenomena in the total phase and the vortex phase. The results from the second part, flow-induced vibration of a square cylinder with angle of attack variation, show that the cylinder, as expected, experiences galloping at the zero angle of attack orientation (0 degree) and vortex-induced vibration at the diamond orientation (45 degree). As the angle of attack is varied from 45 degree to 0 degree, the body can undergo combinations of both vortex-induced vibration and galloping in a mixed response region. In this region, the oscillation amplitude response exhibits a new branch that exceeds the responses resulting from the two body-oscillator phenomena independently. For velocities above this resonant region, the body oscillation frequency splits into two diverging branches. Further, analysis of the amplitude reveals that the transition between galloping and vortex-induced vibrations occurs over a narrow range of angle of incidence. Despite the rich set of states found in the parameter space the vortex shedding modes remain very similar to those found previously in vortex-induced vibration.