Fluid structure interaction of a submerged flexible circular cylinder mounted on an experimental rig

This study aims to develop a numerical tool for investigating the FSI and dynamic reactions of a scale model of a deeply submerged cylindrical flexible offshore structure mounted on an experimental rig that will be used for future studies. The flow around a finite cylinder with an aspect ratio of four causes smaller drag and lift forces compared to an infinite cylinder. However, for cylinders with flexible material properties these forces cause non-negligible deformations which require the investigation of FSI. For this purpose, a two-way coupled partitioned approach was used by coupling the FLUENT and Transient Structural modules in ANSYS with the help of dynamic meshing algorithms in order to communicate force and deformation data alternately between the solvers. Compared to two-way coupling, one-way coupling demands less effort and computational resources, however, it overestimates the deformations for the flexible cylinder. Two-way coupling requires more effort and computational resources, yet it is advantageous enough to justify extra work and computational resources.