A Wake Oscillator Model With Nonlinear Coupling for the VIV of Rigid Cylinder Constrained to Vibrate in the Cross-Flow Direction

In this paper a new wake oscillator model with nonlinear coupling term is proposed to model the vortex-induced vibration of an elastically supported rigid cylinder constrained to vibrate in the cross-flow direction. The superiority of this new model lies in its ability to satisfy at the same time both free and forced vibration experiments. The new wake oscillator model is based on an existing van der Pol wake oscillator model and nonlinear coupling terms are added to improve its performance in the modelling of forced vibration. The tuning of this new model to the forced vibration shows good agreement with experiments in terms of the added damping but failed to capture the negative added mass at high reduced velocities. To eliminate this discrepancy the model is further enhanced by relaxing the assumption of constant potential added mass. Using the parameters obtained from the forced vibration experiments, the free vibration simulation is conducted and results are compared with the experiments. Comparison indicates good agreement between simulation and experiments, and the main features of VIV are captured.