An Experimental Investigation on Cylinder VIV Trajectories Under Different Model Scale

In this paper, model tests were carried out to investigate two degrees of freedom VIV of horizontally-laid cylinders with diameters of 5cm, 11cm, 20cm and length 120cm and compared their vibration trajectories. The test results showed that the in-line and cross-flow vibration frequency of different scale cylinders demonstrate “multi frequency” phenomenon, that is, the in-line vibration frequency is not only twice but also once or four times as much as the cross-flow vibration frequency in some scale, natural frequency and reduced velocity conditions. Also, the cross-flow multi-frequency vibration phenomenon occurred. The trajectory of the vibration cylinder differentiated from the traditional “8” shape accordingly. The vibration trajectory, especially of small-scale cylinder, changed in most conspicuous manner. Through the initial research and analysis, it was found that in addition to in-line and cross-flow natural vibration frequency and the flow velocity, the shape of cylinders was also one of the main causes leading to different vibration trajectory forms.