The Lift Force on a Cylinder Vibrating in a Current

This paper reports an extensive program of forced and free vibration tests on a single circular cylinder moving mainly perpendicularly to a uniform current. For both free and forced vibration tests, two cases were investigated: one in which the cylinder was restrained in the in-line direction and the other in which it was supported on suitable springs. The cross-flow vibrational response and hydrodynamic forces on the cylinder were measured. Large variations of motion frequency in the “lock-in” range were found from the free vibration tests. This leads to two different definitions of reduced velocity, namely, a so-called nominal reduced velocity based on one reference frequency and the true reduced velocity based on the actual vibration frequency. When different results are compared, the true reduced velocity should be used. The forced vibration tests showed, as may be expected, that the transverse force in the “lock-in” range on the average will add energy to the cylinder at moderate motion amplitudes and subtract energy at large amplitudes. Some conditions resulting in a steady-state vibration of a flexibly mounted cylinder were analyzed. The actual force traces also show very large and apparently random deviations from the average force amplitude. The results from the forced and the free vibration tests are consistent with each other if the true reduced velocity and reduced amplitude are the same.