Analysis of unsteady forces acting on a slender cylinder

Developments in construction engineering (new materials, construction techniques) facilitate the design of very flexible, light structures with low damping which unfortunately results in higher susceptibility of these structures to wind action. It is therefore necessary to use more accurate scientific tools in the engineering phase of these structures. Analytical methods for considering wind effects on structures encounter difficulties with respect to mathematical formulations of aerodynamic forces. In this paper a 2D numerical model has been described which considers the fluid domain with respect to a cylindrical obstacle. This 2D model has been discretized using the finite volume method, and numerical simulations have been undertaken in order to describe the unsteady flow conditions within the analyzed domain. The simulations have been performed with boundary conditions characterizing the flow past a cylindrical obstacle. The results have been compared with the literature data from similar experiments. On the basis of the flow characteristics obtained, as well as the spatial distributions of the flow parameters, a model for further 3D analyses was selected. Next, a 3D numerical study of unsteady flow forces acting on a slender cylinder has been analyzed. Toward the end, a two-way fluid solid interaction approach has been utilized, which incorporates a computational fluid dynamics approach combined with computational solid dynamics.