Forced Oscillation of a Circular Cylinder

Circular structures are frequently found in offshore industrial application, such as risers, umbilicals, spars, and TLP platforms. Theses structures are frequently subjected to vortex induced vibration. Sometimes, they are also subjected to forced vibration. In the present paper, the forced vibration of a circular cylinder is investigated by the numerical solution of the Reynolds Average Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations. An upwind and Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) conservative scheme is used to solve the governing equations written in curvilinear coordinates. The k–ε turbulence model is used to simulate the turbulent flow in the wake of the body, when necessary. The cylinder is forced to oscillate only in the transverse direction of the mean flow with low Reynolds number and low amplitude ratio. The numerical results of the lift and drag coefficients were compared with numerical data obtained from Benevenutti and Silvestrini [1] and Meneghini and Bearman [2] to validate the code for forced vibration. The numerical results indicate that the implemented code is able to reproduce the experimental data capturing quite well the lock-in boundary, and results of practical interest are obtained, such as mean drag, RMS lift and lock-in range and.