FLUID-ELASTIC INSTABILITY OF ROTATED SQUARE TUBE ARRAY IN AN AIR-WATER TWO-PHASE CROSSFLOW

Fluid-elastic instability in an air-water two-phase cross-flow has been experimentally investigated using two different arrays of straight tube bundles: normal square (NS) array and rotated square (RS) array tube bundles with the same pitch-to- diameter ratio of 1.633. Experiments have been performed over wide ranges of mass flux and void fraction. The quantitative tube vibration displacement was measured using a pair of strain gages and the detailed orbit of the tube motion was analyzed from high-speed video recordings. The present study provides the flow pattern, detailed tube vibration response, damping ratio, hydrodynamic mass, and the fluid-elastic instability for each tube bundle. Tube vibration characteristics of the RS array tube bundle in the two-phase flow condition were quite different from those of the NS array tube bundle with respect to the vortex shedding induced vibration and the shape of the oval orbit of the tube motion at the fluid-elastic instability as well as the fluid-elastic instability constant.