Hybrid three-dimensional finite-difference and finite-element analysis of seismic wave induced fluid–structure interaction of a vertical cylinder

The two-dimensional finite-difference scheme has been extended to three dimensions to solve nonlinear hydrodynamic pressures and structural responses of a deformable, vertical and circular surface-piercing offshore cylinder during earthquakes. A complete three-dimensional analysis has been made with both the three-dimensional equations of motion and the simultaneous action of three components of ground acceleration included in the analysis. Not only the magnitude but also the direction of the acting ground motion can be varied with time. The dynamic response of a cylinder is approximated by the displacements in the fundamental modes of vibration. A comparison of the dynamic displacement of the cylinder with and without surrounding sea water has been made. The flexibility of the offshore cylinder can significantly increase the hydrodynamic pressures acting on cylinder faces, that is, the fluid-structure interaction is necessary in offshore cylinder analysis. Although the hydrodynamic pressure induced by the vertical ground acceleration of the El Centro 1979 earthquake is significant, the calculated structural dynamic response of a cylinder is very small and the corresponding resultant hydrodynamic force is almost nil. The hydrodynamic force induced by two-horizontal ground acceleration is about the same as that by three simultaneous components of ground acceleration. For a solid and stubbier circular cylinder, the vertical component of ground acceleration may be neglected.     

Variation of Added Mass and Its Application to the Calculation of Amplitude Response for A Circular Cylinder

In the present study,analyzed are the variation of added mass for a circular cylinder in the lock-in(synchronization) range of vortex-induced vibration(VIV) and the relationship between added mass and natural frequency.A theoretical minimum value of the added mass coefficient for a circular cylinder at lock-in is given.Developed are semi-empirical formulas for the added mass of a circular cylinder at lock-in as a function of flow speed and mass ratio.A comparison between experiments and numerical simulations shows that the semi-empirical formulas describing the variation of the added mass for a circular cylinder at lock-in are better than the ideal added mass.In addition,computation models such as the wake oscillator model using the present formulas can predict the amplitude response of a circular cylinder at lock-in more accurately than those using the ideal added mass.     

Measurements of higher harmonic wave forces on a vertical truncated circular cylinder

Wave forces on a vertical truncated circular cylinder in Stokes waves with the wave slopes ranging from 0.06 to 0.24, are measured in a wave tank. The higher harmonic wave forces are compared with the available values from theories of the FNV (Faltisen–Newman–Vinje) model and Varyani solution. The first harmonic horizontal forces measured are much larger than the theoretical values from the FNV model, while the first harmonic vertical forces are well predicted by the Varyani theory. It was also found that the FNV model significantly overpredicts the second harmonic horizontal forces in high frequency waves, but under predicts the third harmonic forces. The differences between the actual measurement and the theory, in the second and third harmonic horizontal forces, become smaller at low wave frequencies as the wave slope increases. In addition, the transverse instabilities in the incoming waves with high wave slope were observed, which is due to the nonlinear modulation. Measurements were, thus, carried out before the instability occurred.     

Natural frequencies of vertical cylindrical oscillating water column devices

This paper deals with the evaluation of the natural frequencies in heave motion of a single floating Oscillating Water Column device along with the natural frequencies of the water column inside the oscillating chamber. Two types of OWCs are examined, a simple-type device, consisting of a partially immersed toroidal body and a novel-type device, consisting also of a partially immersed toroidal body supplemented however by a coaxial interior truncated cylinder moving in phase with the outer chamber, thus forming a floating unit. Numerical results are given concerning the three boundary value problems, namely, the diffraction, the motion- and the pressure- dependent radiation problems, obtained through an analytical solution method using matched axisymmetric eigenfunction expansion formulations. The effect of the air pressure distribution inside the oscillating chamber on the natural frequencies in heave motion of the two examined types of OWCs and on the natural frequency of the water column motion inside the chamber, is presented and discussed thoroughly. It is demonstrated that the heave natural frequencies are strongly dependent on the type of the examined OWC and the device’s inner air pressure and should be taken into consideration when designing a floating OWC device.     

Internal Resonances for Heave,Roll and Pitch Modes of A Spar Platform Considering Wave and Vortex-Induced Loads in the Main Roll Resonance

We present a study of the nonlinear coupling internal resonance for the heave roll and pitch performance of a spar platform under the wave and vortex-induced loads when the ratio of the frequencies of heave, roll and pitch are approximately 2:1:1. In consideration of varying wet surface, the three DOFs nonlinear coupled equations are established for the spar platform under the effect of the first-order wave loads in the heave and pitch, and vortexinduced loads in the roll. By utilizing the method of multi-scales when the vortex-induced frequency is close to the natural roll frequency, the first-order perturbation solution is obtained analytically and further validated by the numerical integration. Sensitivity analysis is performed to understand the influence of the damping and the internal detuning parameter. Two cases with internal resonance are shown. The first case is that no saturation phenomenon exists under small vortex-induced loads. The first order perturbation solution illustrates that only the vortex-induced frequency motion in roll and the super-harmonic frequency motion in heave are excited. The second case is that the vortex-induced loads are large enough to excite the pitch and a saturation phenomenon in the heave mode follows.The results show that there is no steady response occurrence for some cases. For these cases chaos occurs and large amplitudes response can be induced by the vortex-induced excitation.     

Internal Resonances for Heave, Roll and Pitch Modes of A Spar Platform Considering Wave and Vortex-Induced Loads in the Main Roll Resonance

We present a study of the nonlinear coupling internal resonance for the heave roll and pitch performance of a spar platform under the wave and vortex-induced loads when the ratio of the frequencies of heave, roll and pitch are approximately 2:1:1. In consideration of varying wet surface, the three DOFs nonlinear coupled equations are established for the spar platform under the effect of the first-order wave loads in the heave and pitch, and vortex-induced loads in the roll. By utilizing the method of multi-scales when the vortex-induced frequency is close to the natural roll frequency, the first-order perturbation solution is obtained analytically and further validated by the numerical integration. Sensitivity analysis is performed to understand the influence of the damping and the internal detuning parameter. Two cases with internal resonance are shown. The first case is that no saturation phenomenon exists under small vortex-induced loads. The first order perturbation solution illustrates that only the vortex-induced frequency motion in roll and the super-harmonic frequency motion in heave are excited. The second case is that the vortex-induced loads are large enough to excite the pitch and a saturation phenomenon in the heave mode follows. The results show that there is no steady response occurrence for some cases. For these cases chaos occurs and large amplitudes response can be induced by the vortex-induced excitation.     

Empirical calculation of roll damping for ships and barges

For a large floating structure in waves, the damping is computed by the linear diffraction/radiation theory. For most degrees of freedom, this radiation damping is adequate for an accurate prediction of the rigid body motions of the structure at the wave frequencies. This is not particularly true for the roll motion of a long floating structure. For ships, barges and similar long offshore structures, the roll damping is highly nonlinear. In these cases the radiation damping is generally quite small compared to the total damping in the system. Moreover, the dynamic amplification in roll may be large for such structures since the roll natural period generally falls within the frequency range of a typical wave energy spectrum experienced by them. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that a good estimate of the roll damping is made for such structures. The actual prediction of roll damping is a difficult analytical task. The nonlinear components of roll damping are determined from model and full scale experiments. This paper examines the roll damping components and their empirical contributions. These empirical expressions should help the designer of such floating structures. The numerical values of roll damping components of typical ships and barges in waves and current (or forward speed) are presented.     

Finite element analysis of two-dimensional nonlinear sloshing problems in random excitations

A two-dimensional nonlinear random sloshing problem is analyzed by the fully nonlinear wave velocity potential theory based on the finite element method. A rectangular container filled with liquid subjected to specified horizontal random oscillations is studied. Both wave elevation and hydrodynamic force are obtained. The spectra of random waves and forces have also been investigated, and the effects of the peak frequencies and spectral width of the specified spectrum used for the generation of the random oscillations are discussed. It is found that the energy mainly concentrates at the natural frequencies of the container and is dominant at the ith order natural frequency when the peak frequency is close to the ith order natural frequency. Some results are compared between the fully nonlinear solutions, the linear solutions and the linear plus second-order solutions.     

A Finite Element Solution of Wave Forces on Submerged Horizontal Circular Cylinders

In this paper, a numerical model is established for estimating the wave forces on a submerged horizontal circular cylinder. For predicting the wave motion, a set of two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations is solved numerically with a finite element method. In order to track the moving non-linear wave surface boundary, the Navier-Stokes equations are discretized in a moving mesh system. After each computational time step, the mesh is modified according to the changed wave surface boundary. In order to stabilize the numerical procedure, a three-step finite element method is applied in the time integration. The water sloshing in a tank and wave propagation over a submerged bar are simulated for the first time to validate the present model. The computational results agree well with the analytical solution and the experimental data.Finally, the model is applied to the simulation of interaction between waves and a submerged horizontal circular cylinder.The effects of the KC number and the cylinder depth on the wave forces are studied.     

The effects of yawing motion with different frequencies on the hydrodynamic performance of floating vertical-axis tidal current turbines

Under real sea conditions, the hydrodynamic performance of floating vertical-axis tidal current turbines is affected by waves and currents. The wave circular frequency is a significant factor in determining the frequencies of the wave-induced motion responses of turbines. In this study, the ANSYS-CFX software (manufacturer: ANSYS Inc., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States) is used to analyse the hydrodynamic performance of a vertical-axis turbine for different yawing frequencies and to study how the yawing frequencies affect the main hydrodynamic coefficients of the turbine, including the power coefficient, thrust coefficient, lateral force coefficient, and yawing moment coefficient. The time-varying curves obtained from the CFX software are fitted using the least-squares method; the damping and added mass coefficients are then calculated to analyse the influence of different yawing frequencies. The simulation results demonstrate that when analysing non-yawing turbines rotating under constant inflow, the main hydrodynamic coefficient time-varying curves of yawing turbines exhibit an additional fluctuation. Furthermore, the amplitude is positively correlated with the yawing frequency, and the oscillation amplitudes also increase with increasing yawing frequency; however, the average values of the hydrodynamic coefficients (except the power coefficient) are only weakly influenced by yawing motion. The power coefficient under yawing motion is lower than that under non-yawing motion, which means that yawing motion will cause the annual energy production of a turbine to decrease. The fitting results show that the damping term and the added mass term exert effects of the same level on the loads and moments of vertical-axis turbines under yawing motion. The results of this study can facilitate the study of the motion response of floating vertical-axis tidal current turbine systems in waves.     

Viscous Effects on Wave Forces on A Submerged Horizontal Circular Cylinder

Numerical simulations are carried out for wave action on a submerged horizontal circular cylinder by means of a viscous fluid model, and it is focused on the examination of the discrepancies between the viscous fluid results and the potential flow solutions. It is found that the lift force resulted from rotational flow on the circular cylinder is always in anti-phase with the inertia force and induces the discrepancies between the results. The influence factors on the magnitude of the lift force, especially the correlation between the stagnation-point position and the wave amplitude, and the effect of the vortex shedding are investigated by further examination on the flow fields around the cylinder. The viscous numerical calculations at different wave frequencies showed that the wave frequency has also significant influence on the wave forces. Under higher frequency and larger amplitude wave action, vortex shedding from the circular cylinder will appear and influence the wave forces on the cylinder substantially.     

Wave drift enhancement effects in multi column structures

A theoretical assessment is made of mean wave drift forces on groups of vertical circular cylinders, such as the columns of a floating offshore platform. A complete analytical solution is obtained for two cylinders extending from seabed to free surface, and a long wave approximation is found to provide reliable predictions of the drift force in line with the waves at low frequencies. For moderate separation between the two cylinders, this force is found to tend at low frequencies to a value four times the force on an isolated cylinder.A numerical method is employed to study two surface piercing cylinders truncated below the free surface, and an arrangement of four vertical cylinders characteristic of a floating offshore platform. The mean vertical drift force is found to be reasonably well approximated, over the frequency range of practical interest, by the force on an individual cylinder considered in isolation multiplied by the number of cylinders in the group. Interaction effects, however, have a profound influence on the total horizontal drift force. At low frequencies this force is found to tend to the force on an isolated cylinder multiplied by the squate of the number of cylinders in the group.     

Nonlinear hydrodynamic pressures generated by a moving high-rise offshore cylinder

Both analytical (small time expansion) and numerical (finite-difference) approaches have been used to solve the earthquake-induced nonlinear hydrodynamic pressure acting on a rigid high rise offshore cylinder. For the high rise offshore cylinder, the most part of the flow field is independent of z and a three dimensional hydrodynamic analysis can be reduced to a two dimensional analysis. At onset, the dimensionless ground displacement ?² = 0 for the two dimensional analysis, the normalized hydrodynamic pressures across cylinder face is a constant and is independent of the radius of the cylinder. The normalized horizontal force coefficient C_fx is independent of intensity of ground acceleration and is approximately linear and proportional to ?² and its onset value is equal to π. For a linear analysis i.e. neglecting nonlinear convective acceleration, the normalized hydrodynamic pressure coefficient is also independent of the radius of cylinder. The analytical method was good for ground motion in a single direction, the results of simultaneous action of two components of ground acceleration can be obtained by the superposition of the results due to separate excitation. But the superposition method is only valid in the linear analysis. For highly nonlinear problem, the present finite difference approach is recommended.     

Simulating fundamental and higher harmonic VIV of slender structures

Vortex-induced vibrations (VIV) of slender marine structures are complicated response processes, where a number of distinct frequency components might be simultaneously active. These are categorized as fundamental and higher harmonics respectively, where the latter can have a tremendous impact on the fatigue life. The present work proposes a method for time domain simulation of such multi-frequency response, by introducing a higher harmonic load term to a pre-existing semi-empirical hydrodynamic force model. Forced motion tests of a circular cylinder were simulated to experimentally and qualitatively validate the fluid-structure energy transfer. Next, the model was used to predict the response of a tension dominated riser in uniform current, for 22 velocities in the range 0.3 m/s to 2.4 m/s. The empirical input was chosen to give an average best fit with respect to the cross-flow strain measurements, which allowed dominating frequencies, fatigue damage, higher harmonics and response variability to be predicted with a high level of realism. Same set of empirical coefficients was subsequently used to predict VIV of three additional flexible pipe experiments in uniform flow, with significant differences in structural properties. The results were satisfactory for all cases, but could be improved by moderate changes to the empirical input.     

Second-order resonance of sloshing in a tank

Sloshing in a two-dimensional rectangular tank in horizontal motion is analysed based on the velocity potential theory. It is found that even when the first-order excitation is away from all the natural frequencies of the tank, second-order resonance can still occur when the sum-frequency or the difference-frequency is equal to one of the natural frequencies corresponding to the even mode. However, such resonance is not excited when the sum or difference frequency is equal to the natural frequency of an odd mode.     

Experimental Study on Crescent Waves Diffracted by A Circular Cylinder

Crescent waves often observed on the sea surface are unusual wave pattern induced by the instability of Stokes wave. The paper presents the experimental results of the wave field around a circular cylinder generated by the diffraction of crescent wave in order to examine the difference of diffracted crescent waves from the commonly-used diffracted Stokes waves. The results show that with the existence of the cylinder, the crescent wave pattern can still get fully developed, and with the presence of this type of wave pattern, the symmetry breaking of the wave amplitude distribution occurs and there are extra wave components at the frequencies of 0.5ω₀, 1.5ω₀ and 2.5ω₀ (ω₀ is the frequency of Stokes waves) appearing in the wave amplitude spectrum.     

Interaction of linear waves with an array of infinitely long horizontal circular cylinders in a two-layer fluid of infinite depth

The linear water wave scattering and radiation by an array of infinitely long horizontal circular cylinders in a two-layer fluid of infinite depth is investigated by use of the multipole expansion method. The diffracted and radiated potentials are expressed as a linear combination of infinite multipoles placed at the centre of each cylinder with unknown coefficients to be determined by the cylinder boundary conditions. Analytical expressions for wave forces, hydrodynamic coefficients, reflection and transmission coefficients and energies are derived. Comparisons are made between the present analytical results and those obtained by the boundary element method, and some examples are presented to illustrate the hydrodynamic behavior of multiple horizontal circular cylinders in a two-layer fluid. It is found that for two submerged circular cylinders the influence of the fluid density ratio on internal-mode wave forces is more appreciable than surface-mode wave forces, and the periodic oscillations of hydrodynamic results occur with the increase of the distance between two cylinders; for four submerged circular cylinders the influence of adding two cylinders on the wave forces of the former cylinders is small in low and high wave frequencies, but the influence is appreciable in intermediate wave frequencies.     

Numerical Simulation of Self-Excited and Forced Vibrating Circular Cylinders in Current

Numerical simulations of a low-mass-damping circular cylinder which can oscillate freely at transverse and streamwise directions are presented in this work. The Navier-Stokes equations are solved with finite volume method, and large eddy simulation of vortex is also performed in the calculation. In order to implement dynamic mesh, overlapping grids are generated to lessen the computation for mesh field itself. Self-excited vibrations are firstly calculated to obtain the average amplitudes and frequencies of the target circular cylinder in the current flow situation, and then forced oscillations are implemented with parameters obtained in vortex-induced vibrations previously. With slight amplitude modulation, time series of displacements in vortex-induced vibrations are essentially harmonic. Regarding the fluid force, which are larger in forced oscillations than those in corresponding self-excited cases because the fluid subtracts energy from the forced cylinders. The phase angles between forces and displacements are 0o and 180o for self-excited case and forced case respectively. In vortex-induced vibrations, the interactions between fluid and structure produce some weakly energetic vortices which induce the modulations of amplitude and frequency.     

应用两次展开法求解系泊柱体慢漂运动方程

在深海中系泊的海洋平台,如Spar平台,水下部分为带有系泊的圆柱结构,其水平方向运动响应往往具有较低的自振频率,容易在低频波浪力(源于非线性的差频效应)作用下发生共振响应,使结构发生大幅水平慢漂。当浮体的瞬时位置大幅偏离初始位置时,基于初始平衡位置的摄动展开法会存在较大误差。针对这一问题,采用两次展开方法,对大幅慢漂运动开展时域模拟研究。对双色波作用下自由漂浮圆柱的大幅运动响应问题进行数值分析,并与采用基于初始平衡位置的摄动展开法的计算结果进行了对比。结果表明,采用新的两次展开法可以计算出波浪遭遇频率的变化和波浪漂移阻尼,而这无法从基于初始平衡位置的常规摄动展开法中得到,体现了两次展开法在分析大幅慢漂问题上的优势。     

Linear and nonlinear irregular waves and forces in a numerical wave tank

A time-domain higher-order boundary element scheme was utilized to simulate the linear and nonlinear irregular waves and diffractions due to a structure. Upon the second-order irregular waves with four Airy wave components being fed through the inflow boundary, the fully nonlinear boundary problem was solved in a time-marching scheme. The open boundary was modeled by combining an absorbing beach and the stretching technique. The proposed numerical scheme was verified by simulating the linear regular and irregular waves. The scheme was further applied to compute the linear and nonlinear irregular wave diffraction forces acting on a vertical truncated circular cylinder. The nonlinear results were also verified by checking the accuracy of the nonlinear simulation.