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Proceedings of the ASME 2017 Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference

PVP2017
July 16-20, 2017, Waikoloa, Hawaii, USA

PVP2017-65545

TURBULENT STRUCTURE STUDY ON FLOW-INDUCED VIBRATION IN TEE


JUNCTION PIPE

Takahiro Ishigami Masato Nishiguchi


Chiyoda Corporation Chiyoda Corporation
4-6-2, Minatomirai, Nishi Ward, Yokohama City, 4-6-2, Minatomirai, Nishi Ward, Yokohama City,
Kanagawa Prefecture, 220-8765, Japan Kanagawa Prefecture, 220-8765, Japan

Munenori Maekawa Hisao Izuchi


Chiyoda Corporation Chiyoda Corporation
4-6-2, Minatomirai, Nishi Ward, Yokohama City, 4-6-2, Minatomirai, Nishi Ward, Yokohama City,
Kanagawa Prefecture, 220-8765, Japan Kanagawa Prefecture, 220-8765, Japan

ABSTRACT lead to fatigue failure of the pipe. Accordingly, it is crucial to


Flow-Induced Vibration (FIV) caused by turbulent flow understand the feature and mechanism of this kind of the FIV to
inside a pipe could lead to fatigue failure with shell mode ensure a piping system is designed reliably. Ziada et al. [1, 2]
vibration. Our previous study investigated the excitation source have been investigated this kind of the FIV at the tee junction,
of the FIV for tee junctions experimentally to understand the and they visualized the flow field experimentally at the acoustic
FIV mechanism and provided Power Spectral Density (PSD) vibration point of view. In the tee junction studied by them, the
profiles of pressure fluctuation. In the present study, fluid flows from main pipe of both side to the branch pipe. In
experiments were performed with more extensive measurement this study, the turbulent structure which would cause the FIV
points for both 90- and 45-degree tees to understand a more was investigated experimentally and numerically with different
detailed mechanism. PSD plots were provided, featuring configuration of the tee junction studied by Ziada et al. In the
different pressure fluctuation characteristics at each tee junction studied here, the fluid flows from branch pipe to
measurement point among both angle tees. It also emerged that the main pipe.
the PSD level declined with increasing distance from the The previous study [3] experimentally investigated the
impingement point. Unsteady Computational Fluid Dynamics excitation source of the FIV for the tee junctions by measuring
(CFD) simulations with the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) unsteady pressure fluctuations and provided a Power Spectral
model were also performed to understand the turbulent structure Density (PSD) profile of the pressure fluctuation showing the
for the tee junctions. The frequency characteristic of the peak component at the wall near the tee junction. Differing
simulated pressure fluctuation effectively matched those of the characteristics of the PSD between 90- and 45-degree angle tees
experiments at each measurement point, which implies that were also shown in the previous study. However, the previous
CFD simulation with an LES model could reveal reasonable study only examined the PSD at 101.6mm (Equivalent to the
predictions of the FIV excitation source for tee junctions. diameter of the main pipe) downstream of the impingement
Simulation results showed that the relatively large vortex shed point. In this study, measurements of pressure fluctuations of
from the branch pipe impinged periodically on the main pipe the 90- and 45-degree angle tee junctions were performed with
bottom and the large vortex was dissipated downstream. These more extensive points along with the flow direction to obtain
vortex behaviors would be the main mechanism generating the the pressure fluctuation transition for the flow direction.
FIV excitation source. Meanwhile, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
simulation of the unsteady turbulent flow with the Large Eddy
INTRODUCTION Simulation (LES) model was recently applied to study a
Shell mode vibration on a pipe due to Flow-Induced
Vibration (FIV) caused by turbulent flow inside the pipe could

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Table 1 Experimental conditions.
Operation Conditions Estimated Values
Bulk Bulk
Pressure
Pressure Temperat Mean Mean Reynolds Reynolds
Combinin at
at Air ure at Velocity Velocity Number Number Density Viscosity
g Angle Fluid Combinin
Chamber Combinin in Branch in Main in Branch in Main [kg/m] [Pa-s]
[degree] g Tee
[MPaA] g Tee [K] Pipe Pipe Pipe Pipe
[MPaA]
[m/s] [m/s]
90 Air 0.351 258 0.101 224 37.8 974,344 328,841 1.4 1.6E-05
45 Air 0.400 252 0.101 250 41.5 1,111,250 368,935 1.4 1.6E-05

(b) Test section for 90-degree combining angle tee

(C) Test section for 45-degree combining angle tee


(a) Air chamber section
Figure 1 Schematic of experimental facilities.
(PI: pressure indicator of the air chamber and PR01-04: pressure recorder on the wall)


turbulent structure quantitatively, amid rapid expansion of : density of fluid [kg/m3]
numerical computing and High-Performance Computing (HPC)
technology [4-6]. In the present study, CFD simulations for 90- Superscript and subscript
and 45-degree angle tee junctions were also conducted to ( )rms: value of root mean square
examine the applicability of the LES model to predict pressure ( ) : fluctuation component
fluctuation near the FIV pipe wall. We also investigated the ( )m: bulk mean
turbulent structure causing pressure fluctuation near the pipe : statistically averaged
wall by flow visualization using simulation results.

NOMENCLATURE EXPERIMENTAL SETUP


d : branch pipe dimeter [m] Since the tee junction with 90- and 45-degree combining
D : main pipe diameter [m] angles are usually used in a process plant, pressure fluctuation
f : frequency [Hz] among 90- and 45-degree tee junctions were examined
p: pressure [Pa] experimentally and schematic drawings of the experimental
Re: Reynolds number = u d/ orU D/ setup are shown in Fig. 1. The time history data of the pressure
St: Strouhal number based on branch pipe= fd / u fluctuation on the inner surface of the main pipe around the
t : time [s] combining tee were measured with the flush-mounted sensor in
u : mean velocity of branch pipe [m/s] the pipe. Pressure measurement devices were installed at three
U : mean velocity of main pipe [m/s] measurement points for each tee junction, respectively
Greek (hereafter, the measurement point of PR02 shown in Fig.1 is
: viscosity of fluid [Pa-s]

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called the impingement point, PR03 the 1D downstream indicates the Strouhal number St (frequency normalized by u
and PR04 the 2D downstream. D is 101.6mm). The and d). These graphs also show varying characteristics of the
experimental conditions are listed in Table 1 and details of the PSD at each measurement point among both angle tees. The
experimental procedure are referred to in the previous report PSD for the 90-degree tee exceeds that of 45 degrees in the
[3]. wide frequency range at the impingement point. At the 1D
downstream meanwhile, the 45-degree combining angle tee has
NUMERICAL PROCEDURE a peak component around St = 0.16, but this peak is not clearly
CFD simulations for 90- and 45-degree angle tee junctions observed at the 90-degree tee. PSD levels for both 45- and 90-
were conducted. In the CFD models, the upstream of the branch degree tee decay with increasing distance from the
pipe is set to a uniform velocity inlet boundary, and small impingement point and are almost at the same level at 2D
obstacle whose height is approximately Blasius boundary layer downstream.
thickness has been installed near the inlet boundary to fully The overall plots of the PSD of the simulated pressure
develop the turbulent flow. It was confirmed that the statistically fluctuation shown in Fig. 2 correspond well with those of the
averaged velocity profiles in the branch pipe at the combining experiment at each measurement point. These results also imply
tees junction obtained by the simulation corresponded with the that CFD simulation with an LES model has the potential to
fully developed turbulent velocity profile. Upstream of the main provide an excitation source of the FIV for tee junctions with
pipe is a wall boundary and downstream of the main pipe was reasonable accuracy. Accordingly, it could be a very useful
set to a pressure outlet. A non-slip boundary condition is engineering tool for evaluating structural integrity for the FIV
imposed on all walls. A hexahedral mesh was applied to the of the piping system. Conversely, there are small deviations
model of both combining tees to obtain more accurate results between the simulations and experiments when St > 1. Since the
and the number of meshes was around three million in both PSD level generally decrease with increasing St on a -7/3 slope
cases. Our previous experimental results showed that up to 6th (so-called inertial subrange) in the normal turbulent flow, we
shell mode vibration (around 6000Hz) predominated for shell consider the deviation attributable to noise due to the
mode vibration. Accordingly, the mesh size decided on was one experimental facilities or the acoustic effect which cannot be
that captured the vortex scale causing 6000Hz fluctuation. The simulated by this incompressible CFD model.
approximately 7mm vortex scale was estimated by simple
calculation (the convection velocity: 240 m/s, vortex size: a
wavelength / 2). The minimum mesh size for the wall normal VISUALIZATION OF THE TURBULENT STRUCTURE
direction is y+ ~ 200 (y+: normalized by the density, friction Distributions of statistically averaged velocity magnitude
velocity and viscosity) in the branch pipe and y+ ~ 20 in the normalized by um obtained by the CFD simulations of both
main pipe. Although the small vortex near the wall (typically angle tees are shown in Fig. 3. The potential core region
vortex size y+ 15 ~ 30) cannot be captured, we consider the (velocity is equal to um) and related to the high velocity gradient
vortex scale causing 6000Hz fluctuation can be captured. region (shear layer) are confirmed below the branch pipe at
The inlet velocities and physical properties were the same both angle tees. The continuous snap shots of non-dimensional
as those of the experiment given in Table 1. FrontFlow/blue that pressure distributions at a cross-section in the vertical plane and
is CFD software developed by the Center for Research on on the bottom wall surface of the main pipe near the
Innovative Simulation Software (CISS, The University of impingement point at the same time step are shown in Fig. 4
Tokyo, Japan) was used in this study, while the governing and the pressure is normalized by dynamic pressure (u2 / 2).
equations are based on an unsteady incompressible Navier- Several low-pressure regions can be found in the shear layer
Stokes equation. The Finite Element Method (FEM) is adopted and could be identified as vortex positions; confirming that the
for the spatial discretization with second-order accuracy and a periodic vortex motion moving with the convection velocity
second-order time advancement scheme was used. To shed from the edge of the branch pipe to the bottom of the main
investigate the characteristics of unsteady pressure fluctuations pipe (see vortex behavior marked by a white circle in Fig. 4).
at the inner wall, the LES model was utilized for the turbulent The striped low-pressure regions are also found on the wall
model, while the Dynamic Smagorinsky model was applied to surface of the main pipe bottom around the 1D downstream
the sub grid scale model for the LES. (bottom image in each time step), however, at the 2D
downstream, the striped low-pressure regions cannot be clearly
observed. Figure 5 shows continuous snapshots of the three-
POWER SPECTRAL DENSITY OF PRESSURE dimensional vortex structures, including the pressure
FLUCTUATION distribution on the wall surface (bottom of the main pipe). The
The graphs of PSD of non-dimensional pressure vortex structures are identified by the iso-surface of lower
fluctuation normalized by dynamic pressure at the tee junction pressure. The location of the three-dimensional vortex
for the experiments and simulations at each measurement point structures near the wall of the main pipe (gray-colored iso-
are shown in Fig. 2. The horizontal axis of these graphs surface) agree with that of the striped low-pressure region on
the wall surface. Accordingly, the convection of the vortex shed

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from the edge of the branch pipe would be the pressure
fluctuation source and this pressure fluctuation would be the
excitation source of the FIV. Moreover, the relatively large
vortex is almost dissipated at the 2D downstream of both
combining angle tees, which could explain why the PSD level
of pressure fluctuation shown in Fig. 2 declines at 2D
downstream. The distributions of simulated prms are shown in
Fig. 6 and the maximum value of prms on the wall surface of the
main pipe for the 90-degree tee exceeds that of the 45-degree
tee. At 2D downstream, the prms on the wall surface of the main
pipe decreases to almost zero for both angle tees due to
dissipation of the large vortex.

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Non-Dimensional PSD of Pressure Fluctuations

Non-Dimensional PSD of Pressure Fluctuations


101 101
100 Slope(-7/3) 100 Slope(-7/3)
-1 -1

[PSD/ ( ( 0.5 u2 )d/u)]

[PSD/ ( ( 0.5 u2 )d/u)]


10 10
10-2 10-2
10-3 10-3
10-4 10-4
10-5 90 degrees angle tee 10-5 45 degrees angle tee
Calculation Calculation
10-6 Experiment 10-6 Experiment
10-7 10-7
10-8 -2 10-8 -2
10 10-1 100 101 10 10-1 100 101
Strouhal number Strouhal number
(Non-Dimensional Frequency [ fd/u]) (Non-Dimensional Frequency [ fd/u])

(a) Impingement point.


Non-Dimensional PSD of Pressure Fluctuations

Non-Dimensional PSD of Pressure Fluctuations


101 101
100 Slope(-7/3) 100 Slope(-7/3)
10-1 10-1
[PSD/ ( ( 0.5 u2 )d/u)]

[PSD/ ( ( 0.5 u2 )d/u)]


10-2 10-2
10-3 10-3
10-4 10-4
10-5 90 degrees angle tee 10-5 45 degrees angle tee
Calculation Calculation
10-6 Experiment 10-6 Experiment
10-7 10-7
10-8 -2 10-8 -2
10 10-1 100 101 10 10-1 100 101
Strouhal number Strouhal number
(Non-Dimensional Frequency [ fd/u]) (Non-Dimensional Frequency [ fd/u])

(b) 1D downstream.
Non-Dimensional PSD of Pressure Fluctuations

Non-Dimensional PSD of Pressure Fluctuations

101 101
100 100 Slope(-7/3)
Slope(-7/3)
10-1 10-1
[PSD/ ( ( 0.5 u2 )d/u)]

[PSD/ ( ( 0.5 u2 )d/u)]

-2
10 10-2
10-3 10-3
10-4 10-4
10-5 90 degrees angle tee 10-5 45 degrees angle tee
Calculation Calculation
10-6 Experiment 10-6 Experiment
10-7 10-7
10-8 -2 10-8 -2
10 10-1 100 101 10 10-1 100 101
Strouhal number Strouhal number
(Non-Dimensional Frequency [ fd/u]) (Non-Dimensional Frequency [ fd/u])

(c) 2D downstream
Figure 2 PSD of non-dimensional pressure fluctuation (left side: 90-degree angle tee, right side: 45-degree angle tee).

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(a) 90-degree combining angle tee.

(b) 45-degree combining angle tee.

Figure 3 Distribution of non-dimensional statistically averaged velocity magnitude in the vertical plane.

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(a) 90-degree combining angle tee.

(b) 45-degree combining angle tee.


Figure 4 Continuous snapshots of non-dimensional instantaneous pressure distributions.
Top: vertical plane and bottom: wall surface.

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(a) 90-degree combining angle tee.

(b) 45-degree combining angle tee.


Figure 5 Continuous snapshots of vortex motion identified by low-pressure iso-surface with
non-dimensional pressure distribution on the pipe wall.

(a) 90-degree combining angle tee.

(b) 45-degree combining angle tee.


Figure 6 RMS of non-dimensional pressure fluctuation on the wall surface.

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CONCLUSION ACOUSTICALLY INDUCED VIBRATION, Proceedings
The experiments were performed with more extensive of the ASME 2014 Pressure Vessels & Piping Conference,
measurement points to understand the characteristics of the FIV PVP2014-28600 (2014)
for 90- and 45-degree combining angle tees. CFD simulations
were also performed with the LES model to examine its 4. M. Fatica et al., Validation of large-eddy simulation in a
applicability to predictions of the FIV excitation source and plain asymmetric diffuser, Annual research briefs Center
understand the turbulent structure around the tee junctions. for Turbulence Research 1997, pp. 23-36 (1997)
Consequently, the following conclusions were obtained:
5. J. Cui et al., Large-eddy simulation of turbulent flow in a
1. The experimental results showed that the PSD channel with rib roughness, Int. J. of Heat and Fluid Flow
characteristics of the pressure fluctuation along with the 24, pp. 372388 (2003),
flow direction differed for 45- and 90-degree tees and
the PSD level declined with increasing distance from 6. H. Yamano et al., Unsteady Elbow Pipe Flow to Develop a
the impingement point for both tees. Flow-Induced Vibration Evaluation Methodology for Japan
Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor, J. of NUCLEAR SCIENCE
2. The overall PSD plots of the simulation results and TECHNOLOGY, Vol. 48, No. 4, pp. 677-687 (2011)
effectively matched those of the experiments. CFD
simulation with the LES model has the potential to
provide the FIV excitation source around the tee
junctions with reasonable accuracy.

3. Pressure fluctuations on the wall surface are caused by


convection of the vortex shed from the edge of the
branch pipe near the wall.

4. The large vortex is almost dissipated at 2D downstream


for both angle tees, which could explain why the PSD
levels decay with increasing distance from the
impingement point and are almost at the same level.

Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) analysis will be performed in


future using the CFD simulation results obtained in this study to
examine the applicability of FSI analysis to predict the vibration
level of the FIV.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research used the computational resources of the K
computer and other computers of the HPCI system provided by
the AICS, Nagoya University and Kyushu University through
the HPCI System Research Project (Project ID: hp130138 ,
hp140058 and hp160128 ).

REFERENCES

1. S. Ziada et al., Flow-Acoustic Coupling in T-Junctions:


Effect of T-Junction Geometry, Journal of Pressure Vessel
Technology, Vol. 131, Issue 4 (2009)

2. E. Salt et al., Aeroacoustic sources generated by flow


sound interaction in a T-junction, Journal of Fluids and
Structures, Vol. 51, pp. 116131 (2014)

3. M. Nishiguchi et al., INVESTIGATION OF


CHARACTERISTIC OF FLOW INDUCED VIBRATION
CAUSED BY TURBULENCE RELATING TO

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