Vortex-induced vibration of a tube array with a large pitch-to-diameter ratio value

Abstract

To study the vortex-induced vibration behaviors of tube arrays with large pitch-to-diameter ratio values, an experiment has been conducted by testing the responses of an elastically mounted tube in a fixed normal triangular tube array with five rows and a pitch-to-diameter ratio value of 2.5 in a water tunnel subjected to cross-flow. The amplitude curves, power spectral density, and response frequencies were obtained in both in-line and transverse directions through the experiment. The results show that the responses obtained from the in-line direction are quite different from those obtained from the transverse direction. In the in-line vibration, there were two excitation regions, yet in the transverse vibration, there was only one excitation region. Moreover, in the in-line vibration, two obvious prominent peaks can be observed in the power spectral density of the vibration signal. The second prominent peak is a subharmonic peak. The frequency corresponding to the subharmonic peak was nearly twice as high as that corresponding to the first peak. However, in the transverse vibration, only a single broad peak existed in the power spectral density of the vibration signal. The hysteresis and the "lock-in" phenomena appeared in both the in-line and transverse vibrations. The results of study are beneficial for designing and operating devices mounted with large pitch-to-diameter ratio tube arrays, and for further research on the vortex-induced vibration of tube arrays.