Numerical Investigation of Vortex-Induced Vibration of a Circular Cylinder Close to a Plane Boundary

Two-degree of freedom vortex-induced vibration (VIV) of a circular cylinder close to a plane boundary is investigated numerically. Two-dimensional (2D) Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes Equations (RANS) and structural dynamic equation are solved using a finite element method (FEM). If the cylinder is initially very close to the plane boundary, it will be bounced back after it collides with boundary. It is assumed that the bouncing back only alters the cylinder’s velocity component perpendicular to the boundary. After it is bounced back, the cylinder’s velocity are determined by U_c = U_c^′, V_c = −bV_c^′, where U_c and V_c are the cylinder’s velocity parallel to the boundary and that perpendicular to the boundary respectively, U_c^′ and V_c^′ are the velocities before cylinder is bounced back, b is the bounce back coefficient which is between 0 and 1. Numerical results of the vibration amplitude and frequency of a one-degree-of-freedom vibration (transverse to flow direction) of a circular cylinder close to a plane boundary are compared with the experimental data by Yang et al. [1]. The overall trends of the variation of the VIV amplitude with the reduced velocity were found to be in agreement with the experimental results. The calculated amplitude is smaller than the measured data. The frequency of the vibration increases with the increase of reduced velocity. The calculated vibrating frequency agrees well with the experimental data. It was found in this study that vortex-induced vibration (VIV) occurs even when the gap between the cylinder and the plane boundary is zero. This contradicts a perception that VIV would not occur for a pipeline close to the seabed with a gap ratio smaller than 0.3, this is because it was understood that vortex shedding would have been suppressed if the gap between the cylinder and the plane boundary is less than about 0.3 times of cylinder diameter for a fixed cylinder. Two-degree-of-freedom VIV of a circular cylinder close to a plane boundary is studied. The XY-trajectories, the frequency and the amplitude of the vibration are studied. The effects of the cylinder-to-boundary gap and the bounce back coefficient on VIV and the link between the vortex shedding mode and the VIV are discussed.