An investigation of fluid-structure interaction in pipe conveying flow using reduced-order models

Abstract

Fluid-structure interactions are essential to be evaluated in pipelines where the fluid dynamics induces structural vibrations that need to be properly investigated for engineering design. The flow of internal fluids can be laminar or turbulent, which makes such analysis a complex task. This paper investigates the analysis of Fluid-structure interaction from reduced-order models where a Bernoulli--Euler beam is employed to represent the pipe while fluid dynamics is represented by nonlinear oscillators. Structural analysis employs the Galerkin method for spatial discretization. Fluid dynamics is described by considering van der Pol oscillator together with the Langevin equation. In this regard, laminar and turbulent responses are described. Results show that the reduced-order model allows one to replicate the frequency spectrum of the pipeline response considering the parametric variation of the flow velocity and stochastic fluctuations. Nonlinear dynamics perspective shows to be interesting representing instabilities and some complex responses as limit cycle behavior.