Prediction of Vortex Induced Vibration Response of a Pipeline Span by Coupling a Viscous Flow Solver and a Beam Finite Element Solver

Abstract

This paper describes a fluidstructure interaction (FSI) modeling approach to predict the vortexinduced vibration response of a pipeline span by coupling a threedimensional viscous incompressible Navier–Stokes solver with a beam finite element solver in time domain. The pipeline span is modeled as an Euler–Bernoulli beam subject to instantaneous flowinduced forces and solved using finite element basis functions in space and an unconditionally stable Newmarktype discretization scheme in time. At each time step, the instantaneous incremental displacement is fed back to the fluid flow solver, where the position of the pipeline is updated to compute the resulting instantaneous flow field and associated flowinduced forces. Numerical predictions from the FSI model are compared to current tank experimental measurements of a pipeline span subject to uniform freestream currents.