W. D.

Iwan A Model for Vortex Induced Oscillation

Professor,
Department of Applied Mechanics,
California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena, Calif. Mem. ASME
of Structures
A model is presented for the analysis of the response of structural systems excited by
R. D. Blevins uortex shedding. The model is based on the introduction of a hidden variable to describe
the fluid dynamic effects. Model parameters may be determined from experimental data
Senior Engineer, for fixed and forced elements and the model used to predict the response of elastically
General Atomic,
San Diego, Calif.
mounted elements. Analytical model predictions are compared with experimental results
for a-circular cylinder.

Introduction

A circular cylinder in a subsonic flow experiences oscillating lift

and drag forces at Reynolds numbers between 2 X 102 and 2 X
105. The forces are the result of fluctuating fluid pressure on the
cylinder surface generated by vortices shed alternately from each
side of the cylinder. The oscillating vortex forces arise with both
stationary and vibrating cylinders and can cause an elastically
mounted cylinder to vibrate and emit aeolian tones. The large
amplitude oscillations induced in elastic structures by vortex
shedding are of great practical importance because of their poten-
tially destructive effect on bridges, antennas, cables, towers, and
other structures [l]. 1
In 1878 Strouhal [2] found that the aeolian tones generated by a
taut wire in an airstream were dependent only on the airstream
velocity and the wire diameter. He also observed that the sound
greatly increased when a natural frequency of the wire coincided
with the frequency of the aeolian tones. In 1879, Lord Rayleigh [3]
discovered that a violin string vibrating in the wind oscillated
primarily in the plane perpendicular to the wind indicating that
/77P7-
the oscillating force component normal to the flow was far greater
Fig. 1 Elastically supported rigid cylinder
than that parallel to the flow. The phenomenon of vortex shed-
ding was also examined in a pioneering work by von Karman [4]
in 1912. has yet been found. Therefore one must attempt to construct an
Given a structural system incorporating elastically supported approximate model for the fluid-structure interaction problem.
cylindrical elements exposed to fluid flow, one would like to be This model should retain as much of the fluid dynamics as possi-
able to analytically predict the structural response directly as a ble while remaining tractable analytically.
function of the structural and flow parameters. Unfortunately, The nature of the self-excited vortex shedding suggests that the
the theory of vortex shedding, especially in the near wake region, fluid behavior might be modeled by a simple nonlinear oscillator.
is very complex and no exact solution to the fluid-elastic problem This was first suggested by Bishop and Hassan [5]. This idea has
been pursued by Hartlen and Currie [6] who devised a model in
which the cylinder lift coefficient satisfies a Van der Pol type
1
Numbers in brackets designate References at end of paper. equation. Skop and Griffin [7] have refined the Hartlen-Currie
Presented at the Seventh U. S. National Congress of Applied Mechanics, model and have presented a method of parameter selection which
University of Colorado, Boulder, Colo., June 3-7, 1974. yields very good agreement with experimental data.
Discussion on this paper should be addressed to the Editorial Depart- All of the models presented to date have at least two features
ment, ASME, United Engineering Center, 345 East 47th Street, New York,
N. Y. 10017, and will be accepted until November 20,1974. Discussion re- in common. First, the models for the fluid behavior are somewhat
ceived after this date will be returned. Manuscript received by ASME Ap- arbitrarily derived. No systematic attempt is made to base the
plied Mechanics Division, December 1973; final revision, April, 1974. model on known fluid dynamic behavior and the model behavior

Journal of Applied Mechanics SEPTEMBER 1974 / 581

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1
r Control Surface
D ; c pendent of the cross section which produces the vortex street.
Fig. 2 Control volume
cannot generally be interpreted in terms of fluid phenomena. Sec-
ond, the model parameters are usually chosen to back fit some
. subset of the same experimental data that the model is used to
predict. Herein, a somewhat different approach is taken. A model
is developed by introducing a hidden flow variable to describe the
effects of vortex shedding. This allows the model parameters to be
interpreted directly in terms of certain physical parameters.
Model parameters are determined by back fitting experimental
results for stationary and forced cylinders. The model is then ca-
pable of predicting the response of an elastically mounted cylin-
der.
The Model
Consider the elastically mounted rigid cylinder shown schema-
tically in Fig. 1. The cross section is shown circular but this is not
essential to the development of the model. The basic fluid me-
chanical assumptions of the model are as follows:
1 Inviscid flow provides a good approximation for the flow
field outside the near wake.
2 There exists a well-formed vortex sheet with a well-defined
shedding frequency.
3 Vorticity is generated only in the near wake of the cylinder
while vortices grow uniformly to a maximum strength and move
downstream.
4 The flow is two-dimensional.
5 The force exerted on the cylinder by the flow depends only
on the velocity and acceleration of an averaged flow relative to
the cylinder.
When a long cylinder is stationary, vortices are shed along the
span with no apparent fixed phase relationship. However as the
vibration amplitude increases, the flow becomes correlated along
the span and the vortices shed in nearly two-dimensional sheets
[8]. Hence, the vortex force on a long cylinder cannot be well ap-
proximated by a two-dimensional flow model at small amplitudes
of vibration. A correlated flow model will generally over predict
the response amplitude. However, a two-dimensional model is
useful for investigating vortex induced oscillations at moderate to
large structural response amplitudes.
The forces on the cylinder are evaluated from the momentum
equation in the y-direction for the control volume shown in Fig. 2.
This equation may be written in the form
P y = ^ + S,+ F, (1)
where Fy is the fluid force on the cylinder, Py is the pressure force
on the control surface parallel to the y-axis, Sy is the momentum
flow through the control surface, and Jy is the vertical momen-
tum within the control volume. The momentum Jy will be
J= (( pvdxcly (2)
582 / SEPTEMBER 1974
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where v is the vertical component of fluid velocity and p is the
fluid density. A "hidden" fluid variable z is defined such that
Jy = OfjPzD2 (3)
where D is the characteristic length of the cylinder cross section
and do is a proportionality constant. Then z is a weighted average
of the transverse component of the flow within the control vol-
ume. Chen [9] has neglected this fluctuating component of the
momentum in relating the force on the cylinder directly to the
properties of the vortex street. Unfortunately this neglects the
components of the near wake which determine the forces on the
section. Neglecting Jy implies the lift force on the section is inde-
This is obviously incorrect.
The far field flow induced by the vortex street diminishes as
0 ( l / r ) where r is the distance from the vortex street [10]. Appli-
cation of the Bernoulli equation and integration of the fluid pres-
sure along the boundaries AB and CD in : the limit as L\ ap-
proaches infinity while L2 remains finite therefore gives
: P , = 0. (4)
Sy is expressible as a line integral along the sides BC and AD of
the control volume. If the oscillating component of the transverse
flow upstream of the cylinder is neglected, Sy may be evaluated
by considering a line integral bisecting the infinite vortex street.
Under these conditions, Chen [9] has shown that \Sy\ = putT
where T is the circulation of a vortex and Ui is the translational
velocity of the vortex street. Hence, assuming that the oscillating
component of the transverse upstream flow is small, let
\Sy\ = putT + correction terms . (5)
The circulation will be a function only of the induced transverse
component of velocity on the surfaces BC and AD. Hence, it is
reasonable to expect the circulation of a vortex to be nearly pro-
portional to the magnitude of the average transverse component
of velocity in the control volume. It is therefore assumed that
T = K\z\D . , ' ' . . ' (6)
where K is a proportionality constant.
Examining the phase of the momentum flow in the control vol-
ume and that across the boundary BC, it can be argued that Sy
must lag z by approximately one-quarter cycle. Hence
Sy = Kputz(l - T/4)D + correction terms (7)
where T is the period of vortex shedding. The correction terms
may be expressed in a power series of odd powers of z and z. For
simplicity only linear and cubic terms in 2 will be retained in Sy.
Assuming, that z oscillates harmonically at the frequency of vor-
tex shedding, this gives , ,,;
Sy = Kputa}szD-a1pUDz.+ a2pz3D/U (8)
where ai and 02 are dimensionless constants which are assumed
to be small compared to K. u s is the circular frequency of vortex ;
shedding.
It is assumed that the force between the cylinder and the fluid
depends only on a weighted average velocity and acceleration of;
the fluid relative to the cylinder. Hence there is no fundamental :
fluid mechanical distinction between forced cylinder motion and ;
elastically mounted cylinder motion. The force on the cylinder:
which is dependent on the relative acceleration of the fluid to the:
cylinder is assumed to be a linear function of this variable. The
force exerted on the cylinder by the relative fluid velocity may be
written in the form of a, lift coefficient whose magnitude is pro-
Transactions of the AS ME
 portional to the relative angle between the free stream and the z =Aj>{t) cos (ust -(pit))
normal component of the incoming flow to the cylinder. For small
displacements this angle is (z - . y)/U. The net force exerted on where Az(t) and ip(t) are slowly varying functions of time. Then
the cylinder therefore has the form straightforward application of asymptotic techniques gives the
amplitude of steady-state response as [11]
Fy=a3pD2{z -y) + aApDU(z -y) (9)
A?/D = [4(a 4 - a 4 ) / 3 ^ 2 ] 1 / 2 / 2 7 r S (16)
where 03 and 04 are dimensionless constants.
The fluid oscillator is assembled by substituting the component where the solution is stable if aj - 04 > 0 and 02 > 0. This solu-
expressions, equations (3), (4), (8), and (9), into the momentum tion may be used to determine the circulation of the shed vortices
equation, equation (1). This gives and the lift force on a stationary cylinder.
From equations (6), (11), (14), and (15), it is seen that the cir-
, lit i , ,% U . , z3 ,. , U culation of the shed vortices can be expressed as
z + K'-^UsZ = ( a i ' -at')z -a2' + a3'y + a 4 ' y
(10) r = (a, + a3)(2irS)2AzU2/ut . (17)

where The lift force on a stationary cylinder is found by evaluating the

K' = K/(a0 + a3) (11) magnitude of the vortex force from equation (9) with y(t) = 0.
Expressing the magnitude of the vortex force in terms of an effec-
a,' = a , / ( f l 0 + - f l 3 ) ; i = 1,2,3,4 . tive lift coefficient gives
If the cylinder is elastically mounted it will respond to the fluid
C
forces on it. The equation of motion of the elastically mounted '< = - 2 ' p & y p = 0 ) ' = 4 ^3 2 .(2^) 2 + aW*A.VD
viscously damped cylinder of Fig. 1 will be
(18)
y + 2f Tuy + u2y = a3"z + a^'z U/D (12) If the lift force, the velocity of the shed vortices and the transla-
where tional velocity of the vortex street aft of a stationary cylinder are
measured experimentally, equations (17) and (18) provide two re-
a / ' = pD2ai/(m + a3pD2); i = 3, 4
lationships between the model parameters ao, 03, and 04.
2
0 V = ]/k/m/(l + a3pD /m) . (13) Forced Cylinder Motion. One of the distinguishing character-
istics of vortex shedding from a cylinder in forced harmonic mo-
lT= ( s j/fc/m/w + y ) / ( l + a3pD2/m)
tion is a range of synchronization. As the frequency of imposed
s = c/lfkm , if = aipDU/(2muin) cylinder motion approaches the stationary shedding frequency,
the vortex shedding locks onto the forcing frequency. The vortex
m is the mass per unit length of the cylinder, k is the support shedding remains synchronized with the forcing frequency for a
stiffness per unit length, and c the support damping per unit range of frequencies near the stationary shedding frequency. The
length, fr is the total effective damping coefficient. It is com- bandwidth of the synchronization range increases with increasing
posed of a component due to structural viscous damping, fs, and amplitude of forced vibration [5, 12]. The vortex forces on the cyl-
a component due to viscous fluid damping, {f. inder also increase with increasing amplitude of vibration perhaps
The natural frequency of the fluid oscillator (the shedding fre- due to increased strength of the shed vortices [5, 6]. The present
quency) is given by equation (10) as model correctly predicts a range of synchronization for forced cyl-
inder motion and the amplitude of the force on the cylinder in-
creases with the amplitude of forced cylinder motion. These char-
acteristics may be used with experimental data to provide two
additional relationships between the model parameters.
Since Ut/U is approximately consant for a large range of Reynolds Let
numbers [9], the model states that the natural frequency of the
fluid oscillator is proportional to the ratio of free-stream velocity y = A s i n (o)yt + cpv); cpv = tan" 1 (4^ s /27rSa 3 o) J1 )(19)
to cylinder diameter. This is a well-known experimental fact. The
constant of proportionality is normally written as 2irS where S is Then, equation (10) becomes
the dimensionless Strouhal number. Hence
z + OJ2Z = (a 4 ' -an')Uz/D -a2'zs/UD + du)2 cos uyt
cos = 2TTS - | (15)
(20)

Experimental values of the Strouhal number and ut/U determine where

the parameter K'.
To this point no restriction has been placed on the cross section
which produces the vortex street. The model parameters are fixed
by matching experimental data for a given cross section with the
model response as predicted by analysis.
Selection of Model Parameters
All of the model parameters but one can be determined from
experimental data for stationary and harmonically forced cylin-
ders when such is available. This is accomplished as follows:
Stationary Cylinder. If y(t) = 0, equation (1) becomes
d = [a3'2 + a 4 ' V A o v 2 ( 2 7 7 S ) 2 ] 1 / 2 A , (21)
Equation (20) is in the form of the classical forced Van der Pol os-
cillator and the first-order approximate solution of this equation
is well known [13]. A relationship between the model parameters
and experimental data may be generated by matching the band-
width of the range of synchronization with experimental data. If
the frequency range of synchronization, Aws, is known, the band-
width of synchronization, /3, may be defined as
/3=Au; s /a> s (22)

z + u2z = ((' -ai')Uz/D -a^P/VD The frequency range of synchronization for the model may be
taken to be the range of driving frequency for which the simple
Assume a solution of the form harmonic solution is stable [14]. For small values of/3, this gives

Journal of Applied Mechanics SEPTEMBER 1974 / 583

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 4 A , = A > , M , ) f l 1 ' 2 [ j " + 4 "/(27rS) 2 | 1 / 2 (30)
.6TrSa2(A^/D)K
N u m e r i c a l E x a m p l e C i r c u l a r Cylinder
= , r2(A v /Z?) 2 ( 3 2 + fl4V(l + / 3 / 2 ) 2 ( 2 T T S ) 2 ) 1 / 2 ( 1 + f}/2f V Four relationships between the model parameters and experi-
I 37rSo 2 U 2 0//3) 3 fl 0 -I mental data have been formulated. These are
(23) 1 The circulation and translational velocity of a vortex shed
from a stationary cylinder, equation (17).
The force on the oscillating cylinder of the model can be ex- 2 The lift force on a stationary cylinder, equation (18).
pressed in terms of a lift coefficient CFI.V) of the form of that in 3 The bandwidth of synchronization of a forced cylinder,
equation (18) with Fy a function of Ay as determined by the ap- equation (23).
proximate solution of equation (20). The CF (V > so determined is a 4 The rate of increase of lift force with increasing amplitude of
rather complex increasing function of Ay. In order to obtain an- forced vibration, equation (24).
other relationship between the model parameters, it will be re- The parameter 03 determines the magnitude of the fluid force
quired that the rate of increase of the lift coefficient with cylinder on the cylinder due to acceleration of the near wake relative to
amplitude agree with experimental observations at Ay = 0. It the cylinder. Numerical results indicate that the best agreement
may be shown that between model predictions and experimental response data for an
elastically mounted circular cylinder is obtained when 03 equals
lim -d^^~ (Qnv) ) (24)
4ITS zero [16]. The primary effect of setting 03 equal to zero is to maxi-
d(Ay/D) 6(Azo/DY(2TrS)ia2
mize the theoretical range of vortex synchronization or entrain-
This equation provides a fourth relationship between the five ment. Setting a3 equal to zero does not imply that there is no
model parameters ao, a%, a% 03, and 04. If one of these parame- added mass effect since the flow forward of the separation point
ters is specified, the remaining parameters may be determined remains attached to the cylinder effectively increasing the oscil-
from experimental data on fixed and forced cylinder behavior. lating mass of the cylinder. Rather, a 3 equal to zero implies that
The fluid interaction mass parameter 03 is herein taken as the the acceleration of the near wake does not greatly affect the fluid
one free parameter. force on the cylinder, az is zero in the following examples.
Experimental data for vortex circulation and vortex transla-
R e s p o n s e of E l a s t i c a l l y S u p p o r t e d Cylinder tional velocity for a circular cylinder are taken from results re-
The coupled equations governing the response of an elastically ported by Chen [9]. Synchronization bandwidth data are from
mounted cylinder are equations (10) and (12). The first of these Koopmann [12] and the rate of increase of vortex lift force with in-
equations is nonlinear while the second is linear. An approximate creasing amplitude of vibration is extrapolated from data pre-
solution is generated by using the method of harmonic balance sented by Bishop and Hassan [5]. The various bits of data avail-
[15] with an assumed solution for the hidden variable z of the able are taken over a large range of Reynolds number but all are
form within the subcritical range. There is insufficient data to estab-
lish any meaningful trends with Reynolds number. The following
z = Az cos (co2/ -.<p). (25) approximate mean, values of the experimental data were chosen
Substituting (25) into equation (12) and solving gives y as a lin- for a circular cylinder in the subcritical Reynolds number range.
ear function of z and z. Substituting this solution into equation
(10) yields an equation for z of the form CF(=0.50; ^ ^ = 0.40; S=0.20
z + a>s22 = atz + a2z 3
+ asz (26)
0 = - O . 4 O for Av/D= 0.20; lim f ^ = 1.68
where the a* are functions of at, cos, oin, and coz but not Az. Apply-
A -0 o\Ay/v)
ing harmonic balance to equation (26) gives
The model parameters corresponding to this data are
(A /n^ 2 4
(us/o^y { ("1 - " 4 )
KAJU) - 3 \ 2 l l S ) \ a ^ j w j
0.48, Oj = 0 . 4 4 , 0.20, 0 , _aA= 0.38.
(fl 4 'a 3 " + a 3 ' a 4 " ) [ l - K A 4 , ) 2 ]
The amplitude of the fluid variable for the stationary cylinder is :
foundtobeA 2 /D = 0.53.
2
^ 2 ( ^ " W V W ^ ) 2 -fl3'VH/<4,)2(W]} (27) Peak Amplitude of Response. For a given set of model p a -
rameters, the amplitude of cylinder vibration is a function of the ,
and structural damping factor, fs, the mass ratio, pD2/2m, and the
2 ratio of the nominal vortex shedding frequency to the natural fre-'i
(ai"ai w>)
'*M, = WS/OJ | l + (1 KM,) 2 \ (2TT;
S)2
quency of the cylinder structure, <os/o)n. However, the peak am- '
plitude of cylinder oscillation for the resonant condition can be i
^2/ found in terms of a single model variable called the reduced >
-!"i'HM)!)- 9 ,
i i T
(aJ.M,)W<4,)(fl4'a" + "";.') 1 1
2nS JJ damping by letting mn ~ o>s in equations (27) and (29). This
(28) yields

where
A y(max) 2ir{a32 + 2 1/2
ff//(27rS) 1 A,
B = 1/[1 - H/co) ] + ( 2 ^ ^ / c o J 2 2 2
(29) 6 r + cti/S
4( fl4 2 /(27rS) 2 - 3 2 ) 11/2
The frequency equation, equation (28), is decoupled from the (31)
amplitude equation, equation (27), since no nonlinear terms in z 3 2 (6 r S + n 4 )
were incorporated in the fluid oscillator model. The frequency
equation may be solved numerically and the resultant frequency where the reduced damping, 5r, is defined as
substituted into equation (27) to determine the amplitude of os-
cillation of the hidden fluid variable Az. Ay is then determined 2ni
(2nt;s) (32)
from equation (12) as

584 / SEPTEMBER 1974 Transactions of the AS ME

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 0.6
0.4
Fig. 3 Resonant cylinder Amplitude versus reduced damping; experi-
mental results from Feng [18] and Scruton ]19]
When a4 2 /(27rS) 2 > a 3 2 , as is herein the case, the terms in pa-
renthesis on the right side of equation (31) produce a reinforce-
ment effect wherein the amplitude of vibration of the cylinder in-
creases more rapidly with decreasing damping than would be the
case for a resonant linear oscillator responding to a constant am-
plitude forcing function. This arises because of feedback from the
structural oscillator to the fluid oscillator which increases the am-
plitude of the fluid forces on the cylinder. The reinforcement ef-
fect produces a rapid increase in the model amplitude with de-
creasing damping as shown in Fig. 3. Also shown are experimen-
tal results from Feng [17] at a Reynolds number of 104 and Scru-
ton [18] at a Reynolds number of 10 5 . The amplitude of vibration
as predicted by equation (31) with a3 = 0 and CFI.VI0 = 0.5 gen-
erally shows good agreement with experimental evidence except
at low amplitudes where the lack of span wise correlation may ac-
count for the fact that the correlated flow model over predicts the
resonant cylinder amplitude.
It should be emphasized that the predicted peak amplitude of
oscillation depends only on the dimensionless parameter 5r. This
parameter arises quite naturally from the present model. It may
also be obtained from dimensional analysis by equating the ener-
gy input from the stream to the energy dissipated in the structure
at resonance as indicated by Vickery and Watkins [19]. Available
experimental data appear to confirm the role of this parameter in
determining the peak response of a large class of systems [19, 20].
Details of Response. The details of the theoretical vortex ex-
cited response of a circular cylinder are shown in Fig. 4 along with
experimental results from Feng [17]. Both the model and the ex-
perimental results show a distinct frequency entrainment. How-
ever the model greatly under predicts the range of frequency en-
trainment. This suggests the possible existence of an amplitude-
frequency interaction term in the fluid oscillator equation such as
a cubic term in z. Perhaps the finite band of frequencies often as-
sociated with the actual shedding process also plays a significant
role in the entrainment effect.
The width of the theoretical entrainment band is a function of
both the structural damping and the ratio of the displaced fluid
mass to the cylinder mass. If the structural damping is reduced
the model predicts that the width of the entrainment band in-
creases. This is also observed experimentally [17]. When the
structural damping factor f is greater than the fluid damping
factor, fy, which is often the case, the model predicts that the
width of the entrainment band will increase with the ratio of dis-
placed fluid mass to cylinder mass. This implies, for example,
that the width of the entrainment band for a structure oscillating
in water would be far greater than for the same structure oscillat-
ing in air.
The shift in the experimentally observed resonant frequency
Journal of Applied Mechanics
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= 0.00181
ny = 0 . 0 0 2 5 7
oo cOuuu o -
Stationary
Cylinder Shedding
0.8 Frequency
Q FENG EXP'TAL DATA
MODEL
0.4
A
V 0.2
&,' %
-AA'sK^A. 1AJ-A-
0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4
w
s/wn
Fig. 4 Details of response; experimental results from Feng [18]
from Ws/u>n = 1.0 to values some 20 percent higher could also be
incorporated into the theoretical model by the inclusion of a
hardening term such as z 3 in the fluid oscillator, equation (10).
This has been done successfully in the wake oscillator model [7].
However, in the present approach it would also introduce another
parameter which could not in general be determined except by
back fitting data for the response of an elastic cylinder. This is
not consistent with the objective of the present investigation
which is to demonstrate that such a procedure may not be neces-
sary for engineering applications.
C h a n g e s in E x p e r i m e n t a l P a r a m e t e r s
The numerical response results presented herein for the circular
cylinder are based on model parameters which result from a par-
ticular set of experimental parameters CFIY>, dCF(y) /d(Ay/D),
utT/(U2D) and /3. As more experimental data become available,
or for other than circular cross sections, this set of experimental
parameters may no longer be deemed appropriate. The rate of
change of each model parameter with respect to each experimen-
tal parameter may be calculated numerically from equations (17),
(18), (23), and (24). This has been done for changes in experimen-
tal parameters of 0.025 and 0.250 times the nominal values for a
circular cylinder [16]. Generally speaking, the result is quite in-
sensitive to the size of the assumed parameter variation. The par-
tial derivative of A y m a x with respect to the model parameters o.
ai, etc., may be determined analytically from equation (31).
Combining this result with the numerical results for the rate of
change of model parameters with respect to experimental param-
eters, it is possible to calculate the fractional change in peak am-
plitude of response resulting from a given fractional change in
input experimental data. This result is presented in Table 1. Ac-
cording to the theoretical model, the most critical parameter in
determining the peak amplitude of response is the force coeffi-
cient Cfiyi 0 . The peak amplitude is increased if any of the values
of the experimental parameters is increased with the exception of
the vortex street parameter utT/(LPD). An increase in this pa-
SEPTEMBER 1974 / 585
 Table 1 Fractional change in peak amplitude of response/fractional
change in experimental data
(AA /A ) Reduced Damping, 6 such things as peak amplitude of response, lock-in bandwidth,
V V
'max 'max
WYM 2 4 8 12
r
C 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
F such observations are in some respects more difficult to obtain.
y
8 C
F
0.17 0.15 0.13 0.10
V quantities if desired. Hence, in principle, changes in system re-
-0.56 -0.29 -0.10 0.03
UZD
P 0.21 0. 13 0.07 0.04
rameter results in a decrease in A y m a x at low values of reduced
damping and an increase at high values of reduced damping.
Summary and Conclusions
A model has been presented for the vortex induced vibration of
an elastically supported cylinder. The model is based on the in-
troduction of a hidden fluid variable. The model parameters are
determined from experimental data by matching the model re-
sponse to experimental observations for the cases of a fixed cylin-
der and forced cylinder motion.
The model predicts that an elastically mounted cylinder will
exhibit large amplitudes of oscillation as the vortex shedding fre-
quency approaches the natural frequency of the cylinder. The re-
sponse of the cylinder is a function of the ratio of the shedding
frequency to the natural frequency of the cylinder structure, the
structural viscous damping and the ratio of displaced fluid mass
to the mass of the cylinder.
The model exhibits an entrainment effect; that is, the frequen-
cy of vortex shedding from the elastically mounted cylinder is en-
trained by the natural frequency of structural oscillation. The
model predicts that the entrainment effect will increase with de-
creasing structural damping and this is confirmed by experimen-
tal results. The model also predicts that the entrainment effect
will increase with the ratio of displaced fluid mass to cylinder
mass except in the case of very small values of structural damp-
ing. This is an interesting result which deserves further study.
The peak resonant cylinder amplitude of the model can be ex-
pressed in terms of a single variable called a reduced damping.
The peak resonant cylinder amplitude increases sharply with de-
creasing reduced damping due to a fluid feedback effect. The
model predictions of peak resonant cylinder amplitude as a func-
tion of reduced damping are in basic agreement with experimen-
tal data.
It is interesting to note that although the approach presented
herein is quite different from that employed in the development
of the wake oscillator model of Hartlen-Currie and Skop-Griffin,
the result is very similar. Both approaches lead to a mathemati-
cal statement of the fluid dynamic behavior in the form of the
Van der Pol equation. This is not too surprising as both ap-
proaches attempt to reduce the fluid interaction to its simplest
possible form while the Van der Pol equation is probably the sim-
plest description of a system exhibiting the desired characteristics
of limit cycle oscillation and frequency entrainment.
Both approaches are also similar in that the selection of the
model parameters is ultimately based on experimental observa-
tions. In the case of the wake oscillator model, the model parame-
ters are determined from observations on the elastically support-
ed system for which the response is desired. This is the most di-
rect method of parameter selection and in some respects the eas-
iest to accomplish. However, it might be argued that given suffi-
586 / SEPTEMBER 1974
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cient experimental data on the elastic cylinder response it would
be just as easy to formulate a purely empirical relationship for
etc.
Parameter selection for the model presented herein is based on
observations of fixed and forced cylinder behavior. Admittedly,
However, one advantage of this approach is that the model has
true predictive capability. Another advantage is that the system
parameters thus determined can be related back to physical
sponse can be estimated from changes in certain physical quan-
tities without performing new response experiments. This is the
purpose of Table 1. Thus, for example, the model indicates that
the maximum amplitude of response is directly proportional to
the static lift coefficient of the section while an increase in the
circulation of the vortex street generally tends to decrease the
maximum response. The rate of change of the model parameters
themselves with respect to observed physical data is given in ref-
erence [16]. This information can be used to study changes in the
detailed nature of the response.
Acknowledgment
The authors wish to thank Profs. A. Roshko and A. J. Acosta
for their helpful comments during the course of this investigation.
The investigation was supported in part by a grant from the Na-
tional Science Foundation.
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