Flow-induced vibration of a circular cylinder in cross-flow at moderate Reynolds number

Abstract

In this paper, two-dimensional numerical simulations of the incompressible flow around an elastically mounted rigid circular cylinder in cross-flow have been accomplished with the finite difference method. The bluff body immersed in the flow is modeled by the Immersed Boundary Methodology combined with the Virtual Physical Model. The motion of the cylinder is described by the harmonic structural model which is solved using a fourth order Runge–Kutta method. The numerical simulations were performed for Reynolds number 8,000 and 10,000 and for the reduced velocity in the range 1 ≤ Vr ≤ 15. The vortex shedding process, the time evolution of the dynamic coefficients, the cylinder response and the power spectra of the lift coefficient and of the cylinder displacement were investigated. It was found a reasonable agreement with numerical results for Re = 8,000. On the other hand, for Re = 10,000, the present results as well as other numerical simulations failed when compared with the experiments in the capture of the so-called upper branch. The absence of that in LES simulations can be explained by the existence of discrepancies between the experiments and the assumptions adopted in the present methodology.