Experimental Characterization of Flow Induced Vibration in Fully Developed Turbulent Pipe Flow Available to Purchase

In this paper we present results of an experimental investigation that characterizes the wall vibration of a pipe with a fully-developed turbulent flow passing through it. Experiments were conducted in a water flow loop where the influences of average fluid speed, pipe diameter, pipe wall thickness, and pipe material on the overall pipe vibration were investigated. The pipe vibration was characterized by accelerometer instruments mounted on the surface of the pipe at multiple locations and the rms of the pipe wall acceleration, velocity, and displacement were measured. Simultaneous measurements of the local temporal fluctuations in the wall pressure were also obtained. Specifically, experiments were conducted in test sections of internal diameters of 3.81 cm – 10.16 cm, pipe wall thickness to diameter ratio ranging from 0.06 – 0.10, and with PVC, aluminum, and stainless steel pipe materials. The experiments were conducted with average fluid speeds ranging from 0 – 11.5 m/s with an accompanying range in the dynamic pressure from 0 – 1 atm. The results show that the rms of the acceleration is proportional to the average fluid speed raised to the 2.12 power. Also, the rms of the pipe surface velocity and the pipe displacement scale with the average fluid speed to the 1.62 and 1.16 powers respectively. Further, the rms of the pipe acceleration and pipe speed increase with increasing pipe diameter, while the pipe modulus of elasticity appears to exert negligible influence on the magnitude of the measured vibrations. The rms of the wall pressure fluctuations scale with the fluid speed raised to the 2.0 power.