Toward a Global Model for FSI in Tube Bundles

It is well known that a fluid may strongly influence the dynamic behaviour of a structure. Many different physical phenomena may take place, depending on the conditions: fluid at rest, fluid flow, little or high displacements of the structure. Inertial effects can take place, with lower vibration frequencies, dissipative effects also, with damping, instabilities due to the fluid flow (Fluid Induced Vibration). In this last case the structure is excited by the fluid. The paper deals with the vibration of tube bundles in a fluid, under a seismic excitation or an impact. In this case the structure moves under an external excitation, and the movement is influenced by the fluid. The main point in such system is that the geometry is complex, and could lead to very huge sizes for a numerical analysis. Many works has been made in the last years to develop homogenization methods for the dynamic behaviour of tube bundles (/2/ and /3/). The size of the problem is reduced, and it is possible to make numerical simulations on wide tubes bundles with reasonable computer times. These homogenization methods are valid for “little displacements” of the structure (the tubes), in a fluid at rest. The fluid movement is governed by the Euler equations. In this case, only “inertial effects” will take place, with globally lower frequencies. It is well known that dissipative effects due to the fluid may take place, even if the displacements of the tube are no so high, or if the fluid is not still (/4/, /5/, /6/ and /8/). Such effects may be described in the homogenized models by using a Rayleigh damping, but the basic assumption of the model remains the “perfect fluid” hypothesis. It seem necessary, in order to get a best description of the physical phenomena, to build a more general model, based on the general Navier Stokes equation for the fluid. The homogenization of such system will be much more complex than for the Euler equations. The paper doesn’t pretend to give a general solution of the problem, but only points out the most important key points to build such homogenized model for the dynamic behaviour of tubes bundles in a fluid.