Numerical Study on the Influence of Mass and Stiffness Ratios on the Vortex Induced Motion of an Elastically Mounted Cylinder for Harnessing Power

Abstract

Harnessing the power of vortices shed in the wake of bluff bodies is indeed a boon to society in the face of fuel crisis. This fact serves as an impetus to develop a device called a hydro vortex power generator (HVPG), comprised of an elastically mounted cylinder that is free to oscillate in the cross-flow (CF) direction even in a low velocity flow field. The oscillatory motions in turn can be converted to useful power. This paper addresses the influence of system characteristics viz. stiffness ratio (k*) and mass ratio (m*) on the maximum response amplitude of the elastically mounted cylinder. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations have been used here to solve a two way fluid–structure interaction (FSI) problem for predicting the trend of variation of the non-dimensional amplitude Y/D with reduced velocity Ur through a series of simulations. Maximum amplitude motions have been attributed to the lowest value of m* with Ur = 8. However, the maximum lift forces correspond to Ur = 4, providing strong design inputs as well as indicating the best operating conditions. The numerical results have been compared with those of field tests in an irrigation canal and have shown reasonable agreement.

Keywords

• computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
• flow around cylinder
• fluid structure interaction (FSI)
• hydrodynamic response
• numerical methods
• simulation and modeling
• vortex induced vibration (VIV) ratio