Effect of bed vicinity on vortex shedding and force coefficients of fluid flow on an offshore pipeline

Abstract

The effect of rigid bed proximity on flow parameters and hydrodynamic loads in offshore pipelines exposed to turbulent flow is investigated numerically. The Galerkin finite volume method is employed to solve the unsteady incompressible 2D Navier–Stokes equations. The large eddy simulation turbulence model is solved using the artificial compressibility method and dual time-stepping approach. The proposed algorithm is developed for a wide range of turbulent flows with Reynolds numbers of 9500 to 1.5×10⁴. Evaluation of the developed numerical model shows that the proposed technique is capable of properly predicting hydrodynamic forces and simulating the flow pattern. The obtained results show that the lift and drag coefficients are strongly affected by the gap ratio. The mean drag coefficient slightly increases as the gap ratio increases, although the mean lift coefficient rapidly decreases. The vortex shedding suppression happen at the gap ratio of less than 0.2.

Keywords

Navier–Stokes equations / artificial compressibility method / dual time stepping / gap ratio / flat seabed / offshore pipelines / vortex shedding