An algebraic expansion of the potential theory for predicting dynamic stability limit of in-line cylinder arrangement under single-phase fluid cross-flow

International audienceFlow-induced vibration in square cylinder arrangement under viscous fluid incompressible cross-flow is investigated in the present work. The purpose is to contribute to better mod-eling and understanding external fluid loads exerted on long thin cylinders inducing flow perturbations. Due to high flow confinement, thin cylinders may be subjected to strong vibrations, which may lead to dynamic instability development. A theoretical approach is developed to determine a stability criterion of the dynamical system. The influence of geometric, mechanical and flow parameters such as reduced velocity and pitch ratio is investigated. The proposed model is derived from the potential flow theory and enhanced through an algebraic phase lag model in order to predict the critical limit of the reduced velocity for a square cylinder arrangement submitted to an external in-line cross flow. A theoretical formulation of the total damping, including added damping in still fluid, the damping due to fluid flow and the damping derived from the phase shift between the fluid load and the tube displacement, is expressed. A function depending on fluid and structure parameters, such as reduced velocity, pitch ratio and Scruton number is thus obtained. It is shown that this function provides a prediction of the dynamic stability limit of the system for several ranges of the major parameters to be considered. The results are compared to experimental reference solutions and to those provided by other theoretical models. This work proposes a consistent original model based on a potential flow theory enriched by using an algebraic formulation based on standard physical assumptions from literature. The major advantage of this model is due to the fact that it is in the same time robust and very user-friendly from a computational point of view thanks to the potential framework. In order to describe fluid and solid dynamics in the domain, terms coming from the potential flow theory are estimated by using a finite element method and complementary terms acting on damping are obtained through an algebraic formulation. Therefore this is a convenient way to propose a hybrid numerical / algebraic model for predicting dynamic instability limit in cylinder arrangements