FSM4L_11078:Thu:0950:124
XXI International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
Warsaw, Poland, August 15-21, 2004

Nonlinear Dynamics of Pinned-Pinned Cylinders in Axial Flow

Michael P. Paidoussis, Yahya Modarres-Sadeghi, Christian Semler
Department of Mechanical Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Canada


It is known that cylinders with supported ends subjected to high enough axial flow develop divergence and at higher flow coupled-mode flutter, as shown experimentally and confirmed by linear theory. Also, the same dynamics is predicted by linear theory for the closely related problem of a pipe conveying fluid, but in this case post-divergence flutter has never been observed; its nonexistence was confirmed by nonlinear theory. The problem of the cylinder in flow is re-examined in this paper by means of weakly nonlinear theory. It is shown that post-divergence flutter does exist, but not as an instability of the trivial equilibrium, but as a Hopf bifurcation emanating from the divergence solution. For high enough flow, interesting dynamics follow, including quasiperiodicity and chaos. Reasons for the different dynamics with internal and external flow are explored.



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