Overview of Numerical Methods for Predicting Flow-Induced Vibration

A predictive analysis of an heat-exchanger design against severe vibration and wear has to cope with experimental data on flow-induced vibration and fretting wear, together with the use of analytical and numerical methods for predicting linear and nonlinear tube response. This paper describes a general approach of the problem currently under development at C.E.A. Attention is especially paid to some key aspects of the numerical techniques, namely, the modelization of flow-induced forcing functions and the modelization of impact and sliding at tube-support gaps. These topics are exemplified by numerical results related to some typical situations including the case of random vibration induced by flow turbulence and fluidelastic vibration.