Vibration of a Group of Circular Cylinders in a Confined Fluid

Understanding and modeling fluid/structure interaction in cylinder bundles is a basic requirement in the development of analytical methods and guidelines for designing LMFBR heat exchanger and reactor fuel assemblies that are free from component vibration problems. As a step toward satisfying this requirement, a method of analysis based on the potential flow theory is developed for analyzing free vibration of a group of cylinders immersed in a fluid contained in a cylinder. The method of analysis presented can determine the added mass coefficients and natural frequencies of coupled cylinder-fluid systems. To demonstrate the method the coupled natural frequencies for two eccentrically located cylinders with a fluid-filled gap are calculated and discussed. A few other examples are also given to show the added mass coefficients.