Adaptive control of flow-induced oscillations including vortex effects

Abstract Flow-induced vibrations constitute important design criteria for most offshore structures as well as for many other structures subjected to flow-induced forces. Both the main structural elements as well as supporting structural members such as guyed cables must be designed to withstand such oscillations. It is well established that in the process of vibrations induced by flow, vortices form around the body which initiate oscillations in a direction transverse to the general direction of motion. In this paper, Morison’s equation is used to represent the interaction between the flow field and the structure, complemented by terms including the vortex dynamics effect. In order to mitigate against extreme vibration conditions, here, the implementation of active control is proposed to stabilize the motion of a structure immersed in a flow field. Specifically, a tuned mass damper is attached to the structure and adaptive control is utilized for moving the mass along a particular path while allowing for uncertainty in the various hydrodynamic coefficients. The proposed procedure have two distinct beneficial results. The first one being to control the vibration of the structure, and the second one is the estimation of the hydrodynamic coefficients and the validation/calibration of Morison’s equation model for the flow-induced forces.