Some observations of two interfering VIV circular cylinders of unequal diameters in tandem

Analysis of model test results was carried out to investigate the hydrodynamic interaction between a pair of elastically-supported rigid cylinders of dissimilar diameters in a water flume. The two cylinders are placed in tandem with one situated in the wake of the other. The diameter of the upstream cylinder is twice as large as that of the downstream cylinder. The spacing between the two cylinders ranges from 1 to 10 times the larger cylinder diameter. The Reynolds numbers are within the sub-critical range. The cylinders are free to oscillate in both the in-line and the cross-flow directions. The reduced velocity ranges from 1 to 10 and the low damping ratio of the model test set-up at 0.006 gives a combined mass-damping parameter of 0.02. It is found that the lift on and the cross-flow motion of the downstream cylinder have the frequency components derived from the upstream cylinder’s vortex shedding as well as from its own vortex shedding, and the relative importance of the two sources of excitation is influenced by the spacing between the two cylinders. The downstream cylinder’s VIV response appears to be largely dependent upon the actual reduced velocity of the cylinder.