Wind-Vortex-Induced Vibrations of a Deepwater Jacket Pipe and Vibration Suppression Using a Nonlinear Energy Sink

The purpose of this study is to investigate the suppression effect of a nonlinear energy sink (NES) on the wind-vortex-induced pipe vibration and explore the influence of damping, stiffness, and NES installation position on the suppression effect. In this work, the wind-vortex-induced vibration of an elastic pipe of a deepwater jacket was studied, and vibrations were suppressed by using an NES. A van der Pol wake oscillator was used to simulate vortex-induced force, and the dynamic equation of the pipe considering the NES was established. The Galerkin method was applied to discretize the motion equation, and the vortex-induced vibration (VIV) of the pipe at reduced wind speeds was numerically analyzed. The novelty of this research is that particle swarm optimization was used to optimize the parameters of the NES to improve vibration suppression. The influence of the installation position, nonlinear stiffness, and damping parameters of the NES on vibration suppression was analyzed. Results showed that the optimized parameter combinations of the NES can effectively reduce wind-vortex-induced pipe vibration. The installation position of the NES had a significant effect on vibration suppression, and the midpoint of the pipe was the optimal NES installation position. An increase in stiffness or a 10% decrease in damping may cause vibration suppression failure. The results of this study provide some guidance for VIV suppression in deepwater jacket pipes.