Vortex-induced vibrations of a flexibly-mounted inclined cylinder

The majority of studies on vortex-induced vibrations of a flexibly-mounted rigid cylinder are for the cases where the flow direction is perpendicular to the long axis of the structure. However, in many engineering applications, such as cable stays in bridges and mooring lines of floating offshore wind turbines, the flow direction may not be perpendicular to the structure. To understand the vortex shedding behind a fixed inclined cylinder, the Independence Principle (IP) has been used. The IP assumes that an inclined cylinder behaves similarly to a normal-incidence case, if only the component of the free stream velocity normal to the cylinder axis is considered. The IP neglects the effect of the axial component of the flow, which seems reasonable for small angles of inclination, but not for large angles. In the present study, a series of experiments have been conducted on a flexibly-mounted rigid cylinder placed inclined to the oncoming flow with various angles of inclination (0 degrees < theta < 75 degrees) in a range of Reynolds numbers from 500 to 4000 to investigate how the angle of inclination affects VIV. A rigid cylinder was mounted on springs, and air bearings were used to reduce the structural damping of the system. The system was placed in the test-section of a recirculating water tunnel and the crossflow displacements were measured at each flow velocity. Even at high angles of inclination, large-amplitude oscillations were observed. As the angle of inclination was increased, the lock-in range (the range of reduced flow velocities for which the cylinder oscillates with a large amplitude) started at a higher reduced velocity. When only the normal component of the oncoming flow was considered, the onset of lock-in was observed to be at the same normalized flow velocity for all angles of inclination except for 75 degrees. However, the width of the lock-in region, its pattern, the maximum amplitude of oscillations and its corresponding normalized reduced velocity were not following the results of a normal-incidence case entirely. Flow visualizations showed a vortex shedding parallel to the cylinder's axis for all the angles of inclination considered. The influence of a slight change in the added mass as well as the direction of the inclined cylinder on the response was studied as well. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.