Chapter 1

Introduction
1.1 Overview
Pipes used for transporting high velocity pressurized fluids often operate under timevarying conditions. This can cause vibration problems. The fluid finite element based
finite volume model depends on flow velocity as the variable. In turbulent flow, the
relative motion of the fluid in the boundary layer generates flow disturbances in the form
of vortices or eddies. As the flow rate increases so does the amount of turbulence. There
is a continuous transfer of energy from the main flow into large eddies, and from the
large eddies into smaller eddies, which dissipate most of the energy. This process occurs
in a narrow strip inside the boundary layer, in the neighborhood of the wall. This energy
dissipation produces large kinetic energy losses in the fluid. As the fluid molecules in the
vortices go from locations of higher kinetic energy to regions of lower kinetic energy,
i.e., from near the edge of the boundary layer to near the wall, the kinetic energy of the
fluid is converted into heat and potential energy in the form of pressure.
.

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These pressure fluctuations excite vibratory oscillations in the pipe through which the
fluid is flowing. The movement of the pipe also causes additional pressure fluctuations in
return. This two-way interaction results in flow-induced vibration. The procedure for
determining the relationship between flow rate and pipe vibration consists of solving the
fluid mechanical problem.

1.2 Turbulence
Turbulent flows are filled with swirling and spiraling motions. This is especially true if
the object itself is spinning like a planet or star where the Coriolis effect causes winds
and currents to curve and wiggle around.

Turbulence consists of fluctuations in the flow field in time and space. It is a complex
process, mainly because it is three dimensional, unsteady and consists of many scales. It
can have a significant effect on the characteristics of the flow. Turbulence occurs when
the inertia forces in the fluid become significant compared to viscous forces, and is
characterized by a high Reynolds Number. In principle, the Navier-Stokes equations
describe both laminar and turbulent flows without the need for additional information.
However, turbulent flows at realistic Reynolds numbers span a large range of turbulent
length and time scales and would generally involve length scales much smaller than the
smallest finite volume mesh which can be practically used in a numerical analysis. The
Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) of these flows would require computing power
which is many orders of magnitude higher than available in the foreseeable future.

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To enable the effects of turbulence to be predicted, a large amount of CFD research has
concentrated on methods which make use of turbulence models. Turbulence models have
been specifically developed to account for the effects of turbulence without recourse to a
prohibitively fine mesh and Direct Numerical Simulation. Most turbulence models are
statistical turbulence model, as described below. The two exceptions to this are the Large
Eddy Simulation model and the Detached Eddy Simulation model.

Most widely used Turbulence Models

RANS based models:

Standard k- Model

Zero Equation Model

RSM- (Reynolds Stress Model)

RNG - (Re-normalized Group Model)

NKE - (New k- Model due to Shih)

GIR - (Model due to Girimaji)

SZL - (Shi, Zhu, Lumley Model)

Standard k- Model

SST - (Shear Stress Transport Model)

1.3 FSI (coupled analysis) and FIV (uncoupled analysis)

Fluid-structure interaction (FSI) exists in liquid-carrying pipes when pressure waves in

the liquid cause stresses and strains in the pipes (and vice versa). Fluid-structure

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interaction in piping systems consists of the transfer of momentum and forces between
piping and the contained liquid during unsteady flow. Excitation mechanisms may be
caused by rapid changes in flow and pressure or may be initiated by mechanical action of
the piping. The interaction is manifested in pipe vibration and perturbations in velocity
and pressure of the liquid. The main sources of excitement can be summarized as in the
Figure 1-1 below.
Steady-flow and water hammer (transient) analyses provide information on the liquid
behavior under operational conditions. Static pipe-stress analyses and structural dynamics
analyses give insight into the corresponding behavior of the pipe system. Where the
liquid analysis yields pressure and velocities, the structural analysis provides dynamic
stresses, reaction forces and resonance frequencies. It is not unusual to perform an
uncoupled calculation. Pressure histories, resulting from a transient analysis, are used as
excitation loads in a structural-dynamics analysis. The calculation is called uncoupled
since the predicted structural response does not influence the predicted liquid pressures.

Three types of liquid-pipe coupling can be distinguished: friction, Poisson and junction
coupling. Friction and Poisson coupling act along the entire pipe (distributed forces)
whereas junction coupling acts at specific points (local forces) such as junctions or
discontinuities in the pipe network (e.g. bends, valves). Poisson coupling relates
pressures in the liquid to axial stresses in the pipe through radial contraction/expansion
and leads to precursor waves (pressure changes induced by axial stress waves). Friction
coupling is the interaction between the pipe wall and the fluid. It has the smallest effect
on the overall response and is most often neglected.

Turbo machinery
vibration

Valve
Action

Liquid

Seismic
motion

Coupling

Column
Separation

Piping

Pipe
rupture

Machine
Vibration

Figure 1-1 Sources of excitement and interactions between liquid and piping
The terms FSI (fluid-structure interaction) and FIV (flow-induced vibration) are used
promiscuously in the literature. Some of the ways FSI and FIV have been defined are as
follows:

FSI generally involves two-way (fluid-pipe) interaction. For FIV the interaction
normally is one-way. Uncoupled analysis therefore refer to FIV , and coupled
analysis to FSI

FSI considers vibration, noise, acoustics etc. FIV considers only vibrations.

Source of excitement can be liquid or structure in FSI. FIV considers the source
of excitement only to be the liquid.

The term FSI is often used for unsteady flow interacting with pipe vibration,
whereas the term FIV is often used for stationary flow inducing pipe vibration.

In the present thesis FIV would be referring to all the first three definitions. And the
uncoupled analysis would be transient. Therefore FIV would be defined as unsteady flow

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inducing pipe vibration caused by one way interaction of fluid and pipe, dealing only in
vibrations.

1.4 Advantages of Uncoupled Analysis

The keywords that favor the partitioned or uncoupled approach are:

Customization,

Independent modeling,

Software Reuse, and

Modularity.

1. Customization: This means that each field can be treated by discretization techniques
and solution algorithms that are known to perform well for the isolated system.

2. Independent Modeling: The partitioned approach facilitates the use of non-matching

models. For example in a fluid-structure interaction problem the structural and fluid
meshes need not coincide at their interface. This translates into project breakdown
advantages in analysis of complex systems such as aircraft. Separate models can be
prepared by different design teams, including subcontractors that may be geographically
distributed.

3. Software Reuse: Along with customized discretization and solution algorithms,

customized software (private, public or commercial) may be available. Furthermore,
there is often a gamut of customized peripheral tools such as mesh generators and

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visualization programs. The uncoupled approach facilitates taking advantage of existing
code. This is particularly suitable to academic environments, in which software
development tends to be cyclical and loosely connected from one project to another.

4. Modularity: New methods and models may be introduced in a modular fashion

according to project needs. For example, it may be necessary to include local nonlinear
effects in an individual field while keeping everything else the same. Implementation,
testing and validation of incremental changes can be conducted in a modular fashion.

1.5 CFD code description.

The following section would discuss two of the commercial CFD codes used in the
process of simulating compressed methane flow through the pipe junction,

FLUENT.

ANSYS CFX .

FLUENT is a cell centered finite volume, segregated/coupled, implicit/explicit , density

based solution technique. In cell centered schemes the flow variables are stored at the
centers of the mesh elements.

CFX is cell-vertex finite volume, coupled implicit, pressure based solution technique
(i.e., solves for pressure and velocity at the same time in the same A matrix). Pressure

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and velocity are co-located, so p-v decoupling is dealt with using a Rhie-Chow approach.
In vertex based schemes the flow variables are stored at the vertices of the mesh
elements.

CFX uses an unstructured Finite Element based Finite Volume method. The FE basis
comes from the use of shape functions, common in FE techniques, to describe the way a
variable changes across each element. It is also a node based code, where the solution
variables are solved and stored at the centers of the finite volumes, or the vertices of the
mesh.

Both codes are about the same in accuracy, but hard to compare on an unstructured mesh
as CFX is Cell-Vertex Fluent is Cell Centered. CFX assembles control volumes around
the element vertices, resulting in polyhedral control volumes and hence there are fewer
nodes than cells with a tet mesh. While this results in fewer control volumes, there are far
more integration points so the resolution of gradients is more accurate per control
volume. If one compares FLUENT and CFX solutions, one may find the FLUENT
solution is slightly more accurate for the same mesh, but much more costly to run (since
you are solving 5x the number of equations), so you can afford to run a finer mesh in
CFX.

The polyhedral control volumes are also much less sensitive to poor mesh quality. If your
physics allows for it, you can see similar benefits in FLUENT by converting your tet
mesh to polyhedral.

A comparison of relative advantages of FLUENT and CFX are as discussed in the

following page by
Table 1-1 Comparison between FLUENT and CFX
Fluent is a cell-centered code.
CFX is cell-vertex finite volume. To
implement boundary condition better and
to avoid corner singularity better, CVFV is
preferable, at the cost of slight higher CPU
time.
It takes a little tuning to get Fluent to Robustness for steady problems is better in
converge.

CFX

Their solvers have many different models. The solver is very robust. It is easy to make
Flow solver robustness is questionable on complex models to work.
complex models (combustion, multiphase,
etc..)
Fluent UDF's are very well documented, CFX has an easy to use CFX command
archived
advantage.

and

very

flexible.

big language to do simple things. Otherwise

CFX

Command Languauge is not well

documented.
Preprocessing (Gambit and Fluent GUI Preprocessing is maybe a bit slower than
together) is fast considering unstructured Fluent in terms of overall speed. CFX has a
meshing, yet with somewhat antiquated much more modern GUI based on QT, is
user interface. So, if one doesnt care about fully integrated into ANSYS Workbench

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a modern look and feel GUI then it will be which allows direct connections with CAD,
fine.

is configurable like Fluent's solver GUI.

The workflow in Workbench is really nice

Unstructured meshing is not strength in and Fluent has nothing that even comes
GAMBIT, the unstructured mesh algorithm close to this.
is rather poor, and sometimes for complex Unstructured meshing with CFX Mesh is
geometries, it is not even possible to create very good, with high quality meshes very
an unstructured mesh.

easily

produced

for

even

complex

geometries. High quality Hybrid mesh

algorithm creates meshes with prisms,
tetrahedrons,

pyramids

and

hexagons.

Saves a lot of time in Preprocessing and is

a huge advantage.
Their post processor is nice in that it is Post processing wins hands down in CFX.
directly integrated with their solvers, but is The CFX post processor is on par with
really limited in functionality. One needs to something like Fieldview or Ensight or
use Ensight or Fieldview or Tecplot to do Tecplot
anything sophisticated.
FSI is much more difficult to handle with With ANSYS WORKBENCH solutions to
FLUENT, with little integration between FSI problems are very easy with direct
other FEA and the FLUENT code.

integration for a fully coupled solution

between ANSYS and CFX. The need for
matching

meshes

at

the

Solid-Fluid

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boundary is not there, since it can use an
interpolation function.
FLUENT is highly unstable with velocity From the current thesis point of view, CFX
and mass flow rate boundary conditions for has a specific advantage, since velocity
compressible flows

boundary conditions are numerically quite

stable

even

for

incompressible

fluid

problems.

Few other functional advantages of CFX are as follows:

An automatic meshing feature is included in the current CFX software, the CFX
MESH. The solver uses an unstructured tetrahedral mesh, for which the user only
specifies the geometry and surface grid. The solver then automatically performs
the volume meshing, using a very fast Delaunay algorithm. This greatly speeds
pre-processing and produces high-quality meshes that in turn ensure faster
convergence.

CFX increases meshing flexibility even further by allowing mixed element

typestetrahedrons, hexahedrons, pyramids and wedgesto be used at the same
time. Considerable controversy has revolved around the use of tetrahedral
elements in CFD software. The main arguments in their favor are that the meshgeneration procedure can be automated and that high-quality meshes are easier to
obtain when refining the grid locally to resolve features of interest. On the down
side, tetrahedrons may be less accurate than a corresponding hexahedral mesh,
especially in boundary layers where the flow is aligned with the geometry. For

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these types of flow, an alternative method of meshing, developed by AEA and
General Electric Corporate Research and Development in Niskayuna, N.Y., is
incorporated in CFX. This uses a revolutionary technique that will grow prismatic
elements normal to a triangulated surface mesh, and then switch to tetrahedrons
away from the surfaces. This permits the use of meshes that are structured normal
to surfaces and are thus aligned with the flow in a boundary layer.

CFX coupled solver offers a radically different approach that solves all the
hydrodynamic equations as a single system. After one iteration, the velocity field
and pressure almost satisfy both momentum and mass conservationbut not
entirely, because the equations are nonlinear. Iteration is still needed, but as
momentum and mass continuity are always satisfied, far fewer iterations are
necessary than with the SIMPLE algorithm. Typically, CFX requires only a few
dozen iterations to converge, where a segregated solver would need hundreds or
thousands. Furthermore, processing times for CFX scale much better with mesh
size than do those for the SIMPLE algorithm. For the large meshes often required
in real engineering simulations, this approach leads to significant reductions in
run times and faster project completion.

Flexibility to allow combinations of multiple operating systems and hardware in a

single calculation: Hardware running Windows 2000/XP, UNIX and Linux
to be run at the same time using the power of your entire network.

The entire ANSYS CFX feature set is supported in parallel; for example, multiple
frames of reference, generalized grid interfaces, radiation, and Eulerian and
Lagrangian multiphase, combustion, etc.

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The ANSYS CFX solver is significantly less sensitive to poor mesh quality than
previous releases. Automated algorithms improve solver convergence behavior in
cases with poor quality meshes, and the solver can deal with cases that have
negative sector volumes or flat elements.

Computing resources needed for a transient calculation can be optimized through

the use of Time step Adaption & Extrapolated Initial Guess for transient
calculations in ANSYS CFX 10.-0. Time step Adaption allows the solver to
automatically adjust the physical time step in a transient solution based on userspecified criteria including target number of coefficient loops or Courant Number.
The Extrapolated Initial Guess extends the solution from previous time steps as
the initial guess for the current time step, providing a better starting condition and
minimizing the required number of coefficient loops to reach time step
convergence. Additionally, key numerical transient improvements have been
made, which makes it possible to achieve 2nd Order Transient with one iteration
per time step, for time steps in the explicit range.

1.6 Cell Centered-Vertex Centered

In the paper by Dimitri J. Mavriplis [42] an overview of current unstructured mesh

discretization and solution techniques is given. Cell-centered versus vertex-centered
discretizations are discussed, as well as issues of grid alignment with flow features,
higher-order reconstruction, and viscous term formulation.

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A cell-centered approach on a tetrahedral mesh will contain many more degrees of
freedom than a vertex-centered discretization on the same mesh, and can therefore be
expected to yield higher accuracy and require higher computational expense. However,
the cell-centered discretization results in a relatively sparse stencil, with each tetrahedron
having only four neighbors, whereas in the vertex-based discretization each vertex has on
average 14 neighbors, based on the number of edges in the mesh, which can be shown to
of the order of 7N, for a mesh of N vertices. The vertex-based discretization can therefore
be expected to be more accurate than a cell-based discretization using equivalent numbers
of unknowns, since the former approach will result in a larger number of flux
calculations. Additionally, the larger stencil has the potential for more robust
reconstruction techniques and limiting procedures. In the final assessment, the most
effective discretization is the one which provides the highest accuracy at the lowest cost.
Although numerical experiments conducted by the author [43],[44] have verified the
superior accuracy of cell-centered approaches versus vertex-based approaches on
identical grids, but also suggested the vertex-based approach to be the most efficient
approach overall, the issue has never been decided conclusively, in large part due to the
lack of fully consistent comparisons between the two approaches using identical
discretizations and solvers.

The definition of an equivalent grid for comparing cell-based and vertex-based

discretizations at equivalent accuracy levels remains an open question. A study by Levy
[45] found that matching the number of surface grid variables for both grids achieved
similar accuracy for aerodynamic quantities in transonic flow cases.

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Another principal difference between cell-centered and vertex-centered discretizations

relates to the application of boundary conditions. A fundamental problem arises in the
vertex- based discretization, since individual boundary vertices may have ill-defined
boundary conditions if they are located at the intersection of two faces with different
boundary conditions, as shown in Figure 1-1 this situation never occurs for the cellcentered discretization. This is due to the fact that the elemental unit of the computational
boundary corresponds to a mesh face, rather than a mesh vertex. Thus it is much more
appropriate to define boundary conditions based on mesh faces rather than mesh vertices.
In order to implement such a boundary condition in the case of vertex-based
discretizations, a weak formulation must be used, where the boundary condition is
introduced into the residual through a modified boundary flux. This obviates the need to
assign boundary conditions to the mesh vertices, and results in boundary condition
formulations which are similar for both the cell-centered and vertex centered
discretizations, as shown in figure below

BC type 1

(a)

BC type 2

BC type 1

(b)

BC type 2

Figure 1-2 Illustration of boundary condition implementation for (a) cell-based and (b)
vertex-based discretizations.

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Finally it is concluded that for transonic flow simulations, unstructured mesh methods
can be equal or even superior to most block-structured and overset mesh methods in
terms of delivered accuracy at fixed computational cost. On the one hand, equivalent
accuracy on equivalent unstructured and structured grids can be expected for subsonic
and transonic flows, and solver technology for unstructured mesh methods is in no way
inferior to that used for structured mesh methods. Furthermore, unstructured mesh
approaches generally scale better on massively parallel computer hardware than their
structured counterparts.

1.7 CFX Meshing Application

The Meshing Application CFX MESH in the ANSYS Workbench is an easy-to-use CFD
mesh generation tool which produces high quality hybrid meshes for both simple and
complex geometries. It is an integrated component within the Meshing Application of
ANSYS Workbench. This highly-automated meshing tool is closely coupled to ANSYS
DesignModeler for geometry creation and meshing.

3-D Proximity: 3-D proximity detection automatically refines the mesh in areas where
geometric features are in close proximity and result in small spaces within the volume.
This improves robustness and reduces user input.

Prismatic inflation: Flow adjacent to walls is characterized by high velocity and

turbulence gradients in the normal direction. While tetrahedral cells can be used in such

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boundary layers, greater accuracy can be achieved using prism elements. ANSYS
meshing software automatically creates prisms by extruding the triangular surface mesh,
thereby ensuring the highest quality of solutions. This meshing tool provides a number of
different prismatic inflation schemes.

1.8 Motivation and Importance of Present Work

Finite-element methods are widely used in the analysis of solids and structures and they
provide great benefits in product design. Today it is nearly impossible to ignore the
advances that have been made in the computer analysis of structures without losing an
edge in innovation and productivity. In recent decades some significant advances have
been made also in the use of finite element methods for the analysis of fluids.
Computational finite element modeling has been used in the past for fluid flow
simulations but mostly in the aeronautics. However, the application of these methods for
simulating fluid flows in mechanical engineering analysis is more recent. Both of these
applications, the flow simulations and the structural analysis of mechanical engineering
systems, have been rapidly advancing in the past decade largely due to the analysis
capabilities that are becoming widely available for many practical applications. The
evolution of these methods and in particular their implications on mechanical engineering
design initiated the development of a new field of analysis. This new emerging field of
analysis requires a either uncoupled solution or even better, a fully coupled solution of
fluid flows with structural interactions and is commonly referred to as fluid-structure
interaction.

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Symptoms of FSI include vibrations, noise and fatigue damage to piping, supports and
machinery. Other disruptions include leaking flanges, burst rupture disks, relief valve
discharges and pipes jumping off their supports. FSI is not a widely recognised
phenomenon and it is quite feasible that it is responsible for a significant number of
unexplained piping failures and other unacceptable behaviour.

Failures due to FSI are often attributed to other factors. For example, failure due to
fatigue could in fact be FSI induced; failure due to corrosion could again be partially
attributed to FSI, i.e. a weakened area together with an FSI event resulting in rupture.

The aim of this thesis is twin pronged. One, it tries to identify how Flow Induced
Vibrations affect the structure of the pipes and pipe junctions carrying fluids. Second, it
tries to identify the regions of the pipe system where the effect of these vibrations are
most evident , hence providing for a means to reduce the number of sensors needed in the
field and their optimum locations, to pick up adverse vibrations in the structure. Most
industries use these kinds of pipes to transport different fluids across their facilities; it
becomes very imperative to study what kind of pipe geometries, supports etc...are needed
to avoid fatal causalities due to induced vibrations.

It is imperative to identify if there is a possibility of Flow Induced Vibrations in the

system and its probable adverse affects. In course of this investigation if it seems like

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Flow Induced Vibrations are not the cause then focus on other modes of possible failures
need to be studied.

1.9 Thesis Structure

The thesis is divided importantly into 7 major Chapters. This particular section is part of
Chapter 1, which was an Introduction to Turbulence and FSI in Pipes carrying fluids.

Chapter 2, corresponds to literature review. The Literature review is sorted according to

the relevance of the papers to the thesis and according to CFD first and FSI later, rather
than alphabetically or chronological order. With the most pertinent papers being
mentioned at the start and the proceeding towards the less applicable ones.

Chapter 3 extensively discusses about the Theory behind the Turbulence models used for
Fluid Analysis, models for Structural modal and transient analysis, and expected errors in
CFD and FEA.

Chapter 4 deals with Methodology, procedures and objectives. Chapter 5 discusses about
modeling the Fluid problem, steps involved in determining its convergence and
discussion about wall functions and fully developed profile boundary conditions. Chapter
6 does the same for the Structural analysis, outlining the steps involved, modeling,
meshing and convergence of the structural mesh.

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Chapter 7 gives a detailed discussion of the results, their validity, and comparison
between CFD analyses with two different simulation codes. It also discusses structural
modal and transient results. The chapter then ends with the conclusion of the research.