Prediction of Vortex-Induced Vibration of Bare Cylinder and Cylinder Fitted with Helical Strakes

Abstract

In the study, the vortex-induced vibration (VIV) of a cylinder fitted with and without helical strakes is investigated using fluid-structure interaction (FSI) software. The purpose is to predict the VIV characteristic of cylinder fitted with and without helical strakes. Fluid and structural solvers in commercial computational fluid dynamic (CFD) software were implemented as two-way FSI solvers to develop the simulation. A flexible circular cylinder of diameter, D = 0.018 m was tested. The pitch and height of the helical strakes were 10D and 0.10D, respectively. Existing experiment outputs of bare cylinder were used as benchmark to verify the simulated results. In overall, the simulation was able to predict the trend of the amplitude response and the mean drag coefficient. However, a slight over-prediction was noticed. It was also found that the helical strakes was able to reduce up to 60% of the VIV in water.