Fluid Forces on a Circular Cylinder Moving Transversely in Cylindrical Confinement: Extension of the Fritz Model to Larger Amplitude Motions

This paper is related to the fluid forces prediction on a rapidly moving circular cylinder in cylindrical confinement. The Fritz model, which mainly assumes infinitesimal motions of the inner cylinder in an inviscid fluid, is one of the simplest model available in the scientific literature and is often used by design engineers in the nuclear industry. In this paper, simple non-linear expressions of fluid forces are derived for the case of finite amplitude motions of the inner cylinder. Assuming a potential flow, advection term and geometrical deformations can be taken into account. The problem, formulated as a boundary-perturbation problem, is solved thanks to a regular expansion. The range of validity of the approximate analytical solution thus obtained is theoretically discussed. The results are also confronted to numerical simulations, which allows to emphasize some limits and advantages of the analytical approach.