Vortex-induced vibration

Since real fluids always present some viscosity, the flow around the cylinder will be slowed while in contact with its surface, forming a so-called boundary layer.

[2] The most recent interest in long cylindrical members[3] in water ensues from the development of hydrocarbon resources in depths of 1000 m or more.

One of the classical open-flow problems in fluid mechanics concerns the flow around a circular cylinder, or more generally, a bluff body.

At very low Reynolds numbers (based on the diameter of the circular member) the streamlines of the resulting flow is perfectly symmetric as expected from potential theory.

[6] The Strouhal number relates the frequency of shedding to the velocity of the flow and a characteristic dimension of the body (diameter in the case of a cylinder).

Much progress has been made during the past decade, both numerically and experimentally, toward the understanding of the kinematics (dynamics) of VIV, albeit in the low-Reynolds number regime.

Fundamental studies as well as large-scale experiments (when these results are disseminated in the open literature) will provide the necessary understanding for the quantification of the relationships between the response of a structure and the governing and influencing parameters.

It cannot be emphasized strongly enough that the current state of the laboratory art concerns the interaction of a rigid body (mostly and most importantly for a circular cylinder) whose degrees of freedom have been reduced from six to often one (i.e., transverse motion) with a three-dimensional separated flow, dominated by large-scale vortical structures.