Proximity-induced galloping of two interfering circular cylinders

Abstract

Experiments were conducted to investigate the response of a rigid two-dimensional elastically mounted smooth circular cylinder, with oscillations restricted to a plane normal to the incident flow, as influenced by the vicinity of an identical fixed body placed inside the wake. The static lift and drag coefficients, as well as the vibration amplitude and frequency of the upstream cylinder as functions of relative position of the pair of cylinders are given. Most measurements were carried out under two conditions of free-stream turbulence. Whilst turbulence decreased the magnitude of drag coefficients, it had no appreciable effect on lift coefficients. The forces on the upstream body were found to be influenced by the proximity to the downstream one in a significant way only when the streamwise spacing is less than two diameters. In the dynamic tests, two kinds of instability, namely a vortex-resonance and galloping, were observed, with the latter only occurring when the downstream cylinder was well submerged in the near wake of the upstream one. The vortex-shedding frequency was always found to lock to oscillation frequency. Whereas the vibration characteristics remained essentially unaffected with changing turbulence intensity, the galloping amplitudes were observed to be sensitive to cylinders’ aspect ratio. A quasi-steady theory was developed to predict the galloping behaviour.