Ocean Engineering 38 (2011) 13081322

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Ocean Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/oceaneng

Laboratory tests of vortex-induced vibrations of a long exible riser pipe

subjected to uniform ow
Ji-ning Song a, Lin Lu a,b, Bin Teng a,n, Han-il Park a,c, Guo-qiang Tang a, Hao Wu a
a

State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, PR China
Center for Deepwater Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, PR China
c
Department of Ocean Engineering, Korea Maritime University, Dongsamdong, Youngdogu, Busan 606-791, Republic of Korea
b

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 10 May 2010
Accepted 30 May 2011
Editor-in-Chief: A.I. Incecik

Laboratory tests have been conducted on vortex-induced vibration (VIV) of a long exible riser towed
horizontally in a wave basin. The riser model has an external diameter of 16 mm and a total length of
28.0 m giving an aspect ratio of about 1750. Reynolds numbers ranged from about 3000 to 10,000. Fiber
optic grating strain gages are adopted to measure the dynamic response in both cross-ow and in-line
directions. The cross-ow vibrations were observed to vibrate at modes up to 6 and the in-line reached
up to 12. The fundamental response frequencies can be predicted by a Strouhal number of about 0.18.
Multi-mode responses and the asymmetry of the bare pipe response in uniform ow were observed and
analyzed. The experimental results conrmed that the riser pipe vibrated multi-modally despite it
being subject to a uniform current prole and all of the excited modes vibrated at the Strouhal
frequency. The asymmetrical distribution of displacement mainly resulted from the modal composition. Higher harmonics of the VIV response such as the third, fourth and fth harmonics frequencies
were found to be steady over the entire duration of the test even if they varied along the length of the
riser pipe.
Crown Copyright & 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Vortex-induced vibration
Flexible riser
Laboratory tests
Multi-mode response
Higher harmonics
Large aspect ratio

1. Introduction
In offshore activities, examples of exible marine pipes are
numerous such as ocean thermal energy conversion pipes, deepwater exploration pipes, oil exploration and production risers.
Recently, vortex-induced vibration (VIV) of exible marine pipes
has received considerable research attention as production operations move into deeper waters where structures become more
exible due to the increase in length over diameter ratio and are
sensitive to VIV. For exploration in ultra-deep waters, the lengths
of exible risers are more than 2000 m with aspect ratios (length
to diameter) of order 103, prone to vibrate at high mode numbers.
The majority of research efforts on VIV in the past have been
focused on the study of rigid cylinders. Many studies on this topic
are discussed in the comprehensive reviews of Sarpkaya (1979),
Grifn and Ramberg (1982), Bearman (1984) and Parkinson (1989),
and also the recent ones of Sarpkaya (2004) and Williamson and
Govardhan (2004, 2008).
Numerical methods for VIV of exible marine structures have
many advantages but still have some uncertainties and require much
computational time. Many discrepancies between experimental

Corresponding author. Fax: 86 411 84708526.

E-mail address: bteng@dlut.edu.cn (B. Teng).

measurements and predictions from empirically based codes and

CFD codes are reported in Chaplin et al. (2005), especially the in-line
motion was not considered by the empirically based codes and the
in-line predictions by CFD codes were in very poor agreement with
the measurements. So, experimental studies of exible bodies are
required to observe real physical phenomena to obtain some essential information for a theoretical analysis and to validate numerical
results.
Some experimental studies on VIV of exible cylinders enhance
the understanding of exible cylinders, such as Vandiver (1993), Lie
et al. (1998), Park et al. (2004), Braaten et al. (2008), Song et al.
(2009) and Huera-Huarte and Bearman (2009); however, the aspect
ratios of the cylinders in these studies are not large and thus the
excited mode number is low. Signicant differences in the dynamic
response of long exible bodies arise due to the intrinsic nature of
the uidstructure system, its capacity to vibrate at high mode
numbers and the complex added mass and hydrodynamic damping
distributions.
In contrary to the large number of documents dedicated to the
problem of rigid cylinders and short exible ones, there are only a
few experimental studies on VIV of long exible cylinders with large
aspect ratios. Several investigators like Huse et al. (1998), Vandiver
et al. (2005) and Vandiver et al. (2006) have conducted eld
experiments with aspect ratios of more than 1000 to study VIV of
long exible cylinders. Important phenomena of high mode number,

0029-8018/$ - see front matter Crown Copyright & 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.oceaneng.2011.05.020

J.N. Song et al. / Ocean Engineering 38 (2011) 13081322

multi-mode response, higher harmonics and traveling waves were

reported. Although eld measurements can provide some overall
indications of the VIV response, in general they are characterized by
inadequate documentation of the ambient conditions, and by sparse
instrumentation and instrument failures (Chaplin et al., 2005). Trim
et al. (2005) presented laboratory tests of the vortex-induced
vibration of a long exible pipe with a large aspect ratio of 1400.
Both in-line (IL) and cross-ow (CF) responses were prone to be
important with respect to fatigue. The results of this experiment
improved the understanding of high-mode VIV of long exible pipes
subjected to uniform and sheared current proles on both CF and IL
direction motions. In addition, the suppression effectiveness of
strakes was also studied in this experiment.
However, several issues also exist regarding the multi-modal VIV
response and the asymmetry of the bare pipe response in uniform
ow. Conventional wisdom suggests that a sheared onset current
ow prole is required to enable multiple modes simultaneously
excited for a straight pipe with constant diameter. Willden and
Graham (2004) conducted CFD simulations of a long exible pipe
and pointed out that this claim might not to be true. The asymmetry
of the bare pipe response in uniform ow was reported by Trim
et al. (2005), who also pointed out that some response asymmetry
was always seen even in highly symmetric test setups, which may
seem surprising. In addition, higher harmonics of long exible
cylinders were reported by Marcollo et al. (2007) observed in eld
experiments, but there are also some uncertainties and further
laboratory investigations are still necessary.
The present paper describes an experimental investigation on
VIV responses of a long exible riser with a large aspect ratio of
1750. The long riser model is exposed to a uniform ow of up to
0.60 m/s over all its length. Measurements are obtained of the
risers response to vortex excitation at high modes in both crossow and in-line directions.

1309

maximum water depth is 1.0 m. Fig. 1 shows the sketch of the

experimental setup. A 28.04 m long horizontal riser model is
attached to the test rig via universal joints. The riser model, a
16 mm diameter steel pipe with a wall thickness of 0.5 mm, is
submerged under the still water level 0.4 and 0.3 m above the wave
basin bottom. As the distances from the riser to the still water level
and the wave basin bottom were more than 18D, the inuence from
the free surface was believed to be rather limited according to the
available numerical examinations for the uid ow past a circular
cylinder (Farrant et al., 2001), which was also conrmed in our
laboratory observations. The riser is pinned in bending and constrained in torsion at both ends. A spring was attached to one end of
the riser model as shown in Fig. 1(c). The aggregate spring stiffness
is 6900 N/m and allows for gradual tension variation during testing.
A load cell (tensiometer) is used to monitor the variation of the end
axial tension during the towing tests. The mass ratio of the riser
(mass/displaced mass) is 1.0. Since the mass ratio was unity, the
issues associated with the catenary action of a horizontally suspended pipe were not present. In addition, since the riser was
oriented in the horizontal plane, the tension was constant along the
riser, unlike the case of a vertical riser. The structural damping ratio
measured in free decay tests in air was less than 1%. The key
parameters of the riser model are listed in Table 1. Two aspects
should be considered in choosing the end tension. First, a very small
end tension may result in extremely large deections due to the
drag force on the riser model. Therefore, small tension should be

Table 1
Key parameters of the riser model.

2. Experimental setup
The experiments were carried out in a wave basin at the State
Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Dalian University of Technology. The basin is 34 m wide by 55 m long and the

Parameter

Value

Length, L (m)
Outer diameter, D (m)
Inner diameter (m)
Young modulus, E (N/m2)
Bending stiffness (Nm2)
Steel density, r (kg/m3)
Mass ratio, m*
Length/diameter ratio
Pre-tension, Pt (N)

28.04
0.016
0.015
2.10  1011
153.71
7930
1.0
1750
600, 700, 800

Carriage

Track
Spring tension
measurement device
Riser

Tensiometer
Tensioner
Spring

Steelwire
U-joint Riser
Sliding bearing
Fig. 1. Sketch of the experiments.

J.N. Song et al. / Ocean Engineering 38 (2011) 13081322

avoided. Second, an extremely large end tension can signicantly

increase the stiffness of riser model and then much higher towing
speeds are required to excite the high mode responses of VIV. The
end tension used in this work is based on a reasonable estimation
according to our available experimental conditions. Uniform current
was generated by towing the riser model at a specied velocity
using the carriage. The towing carriage can run on a at rail way.
The accuracy of the towing speed was checked by an Acoustic
Doppler Velocimeter (ADV) and was found to be very reliable.
Preliminary calculations based on material properties, attainable
current speeds indicated that the riser model could be expected to
respond in bending modes up to 6 for cross ow and 12 for in-line.
To avoid spatial aliasing in determining modal contributions, a
number of sensors in excess of the highest expected responding
mode were used in either direction. The riser was furnished with
transducers at 14 positions along the riser in two orthogonal
directions, which mean that IL- and CF-induced curvatures were
measured every 1.87 m as shown in Fig. 3. Fourteen strain gages
were burned in each ber, giving total 56 gages. A new measurement technique of ber optic strain gage was employed. Four bers
of about 0.25 mm diameter were mounted on the model surface.
The kind of gages has a few advantages such as small size, light
weight, high sensitivity and general anti-electromagnetic interference (Ren et al., 2006). Its attachment to the cylinder should have an
insignicant effect on the structural integrity and the ow eld near
the cylinder (Jin et al., 2000). A sm130 Optical Sensing Interrogator
made by Micron Optics was used to monitor 56 gages. The sampling
frequency was 250 Hz, which was sufcient to allow observation of
vibration at up to six times of the fundamental vortex shedding
frequency.
For quality assurance during the tests, rigorous calibration and
verication of the instrumentation and data acquisition system
were performed. The calibration of the transducers for measuring
bending strains, accelerations and forces was found to be accurate
within 712%.
Measurements were carried out over a period of more than
60 s, but only the data recorded after the carriage was accelerated
to a constant speed were used for the VIV analysis. The towing
speed (current velocity) in this work ranged from 0.18 to 0.60 m/s
with an increment of 0.03 m/s. The Reynolds number ranges from
about 3000 to 10,000.

Y
G14 G12 G10 G8

G6

G4

G2 G1

G13 G11 G9

G7

G5

G3

Fig. 3. Sketch of strain gages arrangement along the axial length of the model.

Before filtering
After filtering
0.02
0.01
Ws (nm)

1310

0
-0.01
-0.02
19

19.2

19.4

19.6

19.8

20

t (s)
Fig. 4. Signal from cross-ow sensor no. 11 before and after band-pass ltering,
Pt 700 N, V 0.24 m/s.

The strain signal in IL direction at the downstream and

upstream sides of the riser can be represented, respectively, by
the following equations:

e eT emb edb

e eT emb edb

where eT is the strain produced by the increase in the tension, emb

the mean bending strain and edb the dynamic strain induced by
the VIV motion of the riser. So, we can get

emb

e e
2

e e

edb

3. Data analysis and results

eT

The experimental tests consisted of more than 200 runs and

covered towing speeds from 0.18 to 0.60 m/s with the pre-tension
of 600, 700 and 800 N. Two series of data were obtained by the
two gages at each sampling position as shown in Fig. 2 for CF and
IL responses, respectively. In this work, we use G01G14 to
represent the locations of the pairs of the gages as shown in Fig. 3.

It is easy to get the strain emb by time-averaging e e =2 in order

to get rid of the strain edb . In addition, in order to get the strain edb ,
we can lter the components with frequencies at zero from the
signal. The signals for CF were processed by the similar way.
Due to the inevitable noises the measured signal cannot be
used without any processing. The ltering was applied in the
frequency domain to eliminate the unwanted frequency components. Before conducting the VIV laboratory tests, the natural
frequency of the carriage was measured. It was found that the
response frequency was less than 1.0 Hz, which was much lower
than the response frequencies of the riser model in the present
VIV experiment. On the other hand, the highest frequency of the
VIV responses including the fth higher harmonic components
was observed to be less than 49.0 Hz. Therefore, the bending
strain data is high-pass ltered with a cutoff of 1.0 Hz to remove
low frequency effects of the carriage motion and it is also lowpass ltered with a cutoff of 49.0 Hz to eliminate high frequency
noise. An example of data ltering is shown in Fig. 4. The recorded
signal from the sensor is the wavelength shift (Ws) of the grating.
The same ltering method was also used in Lie and Kaasen (2006)
and was proved to be very useful.

Gauge

Flow

Y
(Cross flow)

X
(In-line)

Fig. 2. Sketch of strain gages on the cross section of the model.

J.N. Song et al. / Ocean Engineering 38 (2011) 13081322

3.1. Modal analysis

A modal approach was adopted in this work based on the
combination of signal ltering and least-squares tting of precalculated mode shapes. Assuming that the dynamical process of
riser motion is approximately linear, the time varying shape of
the riser can be composed as a series of eigenfunctions or mode
shapes:
yz,t

1
X

wn tjn z,

z A 0,L

n1

where z is the axial coordinate, L the length of the riser, t the time,
wn(t) the modal weight, jn(z) the mode shape, n 1, 2, 3,y .
The mode shapes can be assumed to be sinusoids for a pined
pined riser in the absence of any knowledge of the distribution of
added mass and neglecting the effect of variations in tension:
npz
jn z sin
L

The curvature of the riser can then be expressed as the series

1
np2
X
npz
7
kt,z y00 t,z 
wn t
sin
L
L
n1
and
kt,z

et,z

So

et,z
R

1
X

n1

wn t

np2
npz
sin
L
L

where e(t, z) is the strain signal at location z and R the radius of

the riser.
Supposing the strain gages are mounted at a number of
positions, Zm (m 1, 2,y, M) and the strain e(t,z) are known
values, the modal weight w1(t), w2(t), w3(t), y, wN(t) can then be
solved by Eq. (9), where N is the total number of the involved
mode shapes. It should be noted that N should not be greater than
M and Eq. (9) must be solved by means of least-squares method
under N oM.
It should be noted that the lowest modes of displacement
could not always reliably be obtained from the strain measurements. This is because the estimates of the lowest modes have
more uncertainty than the highest when several modes are
present. More details are referenced to Chaplin et al. (2005) and
Lie and Kaasen (2006). Estimation is carried out only for the
modes that are likely to be present according to prior judgment
based on the current speeds and spectral analysis of the measurement, which is feasible as suggested by Lie and Kaasen (2006).

p
beam with fn,beam n2 p=2 EI=mL4 , L is the length, T the tension,
m the mass per unit length and I the moment of inertia of
the beam.
Table 2 shows the comparisons of the rst 12 modes between
the experimental test and the analytical solutions by Eq. (10), for
example Pt 700 N. It can be observed that the experimental and
analytical data are in good agreement. It indicates that the FBG
gages used here work well and are capable of providing accurate
results of strain in the structure vibration.
It can be expected that the natural frequencies of the riser
model in water are smaller than those in air. The natural
frequencies in still water were not measured in the work. Instead
they were predicted by Eq. (10) but with an assumption of the
added mass ratio being 1.0.
3.3. Tension variation
It is expected that the end tension of the riser model would be
altered as it was towed in the water basin due to the actions from
the current drag force. In the present experiment, we measured
the variations of the end tension during the towing tests. Fig. 5
shows the variations of the averaged tension with current speeds
at different pre-tensions. It can be seen that the tension increases
slowly at lower towing speeds while faster at higher speeds. The
increase in the tension seems to be proportional to the square of
the velocity throughout the entire velocity range.
It is well known that the tension has direct effects on the natural
frequencies of the riser, especially for the tension dominated riser.
However, it was not easy to measure the natural frequencies of the
Table 2
Natural frequencies of the riser model in air, Pt 700 N (unit: Hz).
Mode #

Measured

Analytical

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

1.07
2.14
3.27
4.43
5.58
6.74
8.00
9.25
10.62
12.05
13.52
15.08

1.08
2.16
3.26
4.39
5.55
6.75
8.01
9.32
10.69
12.13
13.64
15.23

1100
Pt = 800 N
Pt = 700 N
Pt = 600 N

1000

3.2. Natural frequencies measured in air

where n is the mode number, fn,string the nth eigenfrequency for a

tensioned string without bending stiffness and fn,string n=2
p
T=mL2 , fn,beam is the nth eigenfrequency for a nontensioned

900
Tension (N)

Before conducting the experiments of this work, it is necessary

to obtain the natural frequencies of the riser model in air by
means of the beating test because the natural frequency is very
important for our experimental setup and data analysis. Also, the
beating test can also help evaluate the performance of FBG sensor
used in this work.
The nth eigenfrequency for a tensioned beam, fn can be
estimated by (Timoshenko et al., 1974; Lie and Kaasen, 2006)
r
q
n
T np2 EI
2
2

10
fn,beam
fn fn,string

2L m
m
L

1311

800
700
600
500
0.2

0.3

0.4
V (m/s)

0.5

0.6

Fig. 5. Variation in the mean values of the end tension against the velocity.

J.N. Song et al. / Ocean Engineering 38 (2011) 13081322

-6
FG (10 )

10

15

10

11

20
G02

10

15

20
G03

10

15

20
G04

10

15

20
G05

10

15

20
G06

10

15

20
G07

10

15

20
G08

10

15

20
G09

10

15

20
G10

10

15

20
G11

10

15

20
G12

10

15

20
G13

10

15

20
G14

10

15

20

-6
FG (10 )

10

10

15

10

11

12
-6
FG (10 )

20
10

10

15

10

11

12
-6
FG (10 )

20
10

10

15

10

11

12

20

-6
FG (10 )

10

10

15

10

11

12
-6
FG (10 )

20

10

10

15

10

11

12

20

-6
FG (10 )

50

10

0
0

10

15

10

11

12

50

-6
FG (10 )

20

10

10

15

10

11

12

20

-6
FG (10 )

50

10

0
0

10

15

10

11

12

50

-6
FG (10 )

20

10

10

15

10

11

12

20

50

10

0
0

10

15

10

11

12

50

20

10

-50 0

10

15

10

11

12

50

-6
FG (10 )

20

-50

15

20

50

-50

12

-50

10

-6
FG (10 )

50

-50

10

-50

20

50

-50

12

-6
FG (10 )

G (10-6)
G (10-6)
G (10-6)
G (10-6)
G (10-6)
G (10-6)
G (10-6)

11

-50

G (10-6)

10

50

-50

G (10-6)

15

-50

G (10-6)

10

50

-50

G (10-6)

-50

G (10-6)

50

-50

G01

10

-50

G (10-6)

20

50

-6
FG (10 )

G (10-6)

1312

10

10

t (s)

15

10

11

t (s)

12

f (Hz)

Fig. 6. Time histories of CF strain and amplitude spectra at various points for the case Pt 700 N and V 0.24 m/s.

J.N. Song et al. / Ocean Engineering 38 (2011) 13081322

3.4. Time series and frequency response of strain

As a typical example, Fig. 6 presents strain histories and their
amplitude spectra at total 14 sampling points in cross-ow direction
for the case Pt 700 N and V 0.24 m/s. It can be seen in Fig. 6 that
time series of the strain signals at all sampling positions vary in a
steady form. The strain amplitude of the vibration varies at different
positions, while the response frequencies are nearly the same for all
the positions. It is believed that the sampling points with larger
amplitudes are near the antinodes of the dominant mode while the
smaller amplitudes are corresponding to the positions of mode
nodes. One can also nd that there are more than one response
frequencies involving in strain histories. The involved frequencies
can be easier observed by spectrum analysis as shown in the right
column of the gure. Indeed, in addition to the rst leading
frequency component, these are several higher harmonics components of the VIV response, corresponding to the smaller peaks in
frequency spectrum, which will be further analyzed later on.
Fig. 7 shows the contour of the root-mean-square (RMS)
strains along the riser versus towing speed. It can be seen that
the RMS strain increases with current speed in both CF and IL
directions and the increase in RMS strains in CF is more signicant than that in IL direction. However, one may also observe
that the magnitude of strain in IL is not much smaller than that in
CF, especially at the high current speeds. This indicates that the IL
fatigue may be in the same order as CF, which should be paid
enough attentions for engineering design. The RMS strains vary at
different positions at the same towing speed, which reects the
complex modal characteristics of vortex-induced vibration of a
exible riser. The dependence on z/L of strain magnitude is also
observed for both CF and IL, which are consistent with the
experimental results shown in Fig. 6.
3.5. Higher harmonics of the VIV response
In Fig. 6, we have demonstrated the involved frequencies of
VIV response of riser model employing a lower current speed of
0.24 m/s, where the higher frequency responses are not signicant, but mainly governed by the dominant frequency. Considering that the excited frequencies are correlated not only to the
structural properties but also to the current speeds. Hence, it is
necessary to examine the frequency response at a higher speed to

0.6

80
75
70
65
60
55
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5

V (m/s)

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6
z/L

0.8

1.0

illustrate the inuence of environmental ows. For the purpose of

comparison and completeness, we show in Fig. 8 the spectra of
both CF and IL strain responses at the total 14 sampling points
with the same pre-tension of 700 N and a higher current speed of
0.57 m/s. From Fig. 8, one observes a few frequencies to participate simultaneously in the VIV response of riser model. As far as
the cross-ow direction was concerned, notable spectra responses
of 6.4, 19.0 and 31.7 Hz can be identied, for example G02. While,
there are two frequency components at 12.7 and 25.3 Hz for inline direction, for example G01.
The values of the peak frequencies on these plots are 6.4, 12.7,
19.0, 25.3 and 31.7 Hz. If we adopt the vortex shedding frequency as
the fundamental frequency, f0st, evaluated by f0st St(V/D)6.4 Hz
with St0.18, the higher harmonics associated with CF and IL as
mentioned above can be approximated by 2  , 3  , 4  and 5  f0st.
It should be noted here that the fundamental frequency (f0st) dened
here is totally distinct to the natural frequency (fN) of structure.
Moreover, it is interesting to nd that the odd times harmonic
components are generally associated with the CF motion, while the
even times components are characteristic of the IL vibration.
Vandiver et al. (2009) also reported these higher harmonic components of VIV response.
The existence of these higher harmonic components will
contribute much to the fatigue damage because their frequencies
are much higher than the fundamental frequency. So, higher
harmonics should be paid more attention for practical designs.
3.6. Modal weight of the excited modes, dominant frequency and
dominant mode
As mentioned previously, modal weights are computed by the
modal analysis, and the mode with the largest modal weight is called
the dominant mode. Thus, the peak frequency of the dominant mode
is called the dominant frequency. These two parameters are important for examining the VIV response of long exible cylinders.
Fig. 9 shows the contour plots of the standard deviations of modal
weights at various current speeds and three different pre-tensions
for CF and IL. It can be observed that more than one mode participate
the VIV response. The characteristics of excited modes were observed
to change insignicantly as the pre-tension varied under the present
experimental conditions, while the current speeds signicantly
affected the participated modes. At low velocity, the band of
participating modes is rather narrow. As the towing speed increases,
the band gets wider gradually. Compared with CF, the band for IL
shows less broadening. It can be inferred that the overall VIV
response of the riser model may combine signicant contributions

0.6

80
75
70
65
60
55
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5

0.5

V (m/s)

riser model in still water under all the tensions shown in Fig. 5. For
the sake of simplicity, they were calculated by Eq. (10) with an
assumption of the added mass ratio being 1.0.

1313

0.4

0.3

0.2
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6
z/L

Fig. 7. RMS strains along the riser versus towing speed, Pt 700 N. (a) CF and (b) IL.

0.8

1.0

J.N. Song et al. / Ocean Engineering 38 (2011) 13081322

10 20 30 40 50
G05

FG (10-6)

120
90
60
30
0

10 20 30 40 50
G06

FG (10-6)

120
90
60
30
0

10 20 30 40 50

120
90
60
30
0

FG (10-6)

G07

10 20 30 40 50

f (Hz)

120
90
60
30
0

10 20 30 40 50
G11

120
90
60
30
0

10 20 30 40 50
G12

120
90
60
30
0

10 20 30 40 50
G13

10 20 30 40 50

120
90
60
30
0

G14

10 20 30 40 50

f (Hz)

120
90
60
30
0

10 20 30 40 50
G03

120
90
60
30
0

10 20 30 40 50
G04

120
90
60
30
0

10 20 30 40 50
G05

120
90
60
30
0

10 20 30 40 50
G06

10 20 30 40 50

120
90
60
30
0

G07

10 20 30 40 50

f (Hz)

FG (10-6)

10 20 30 40 50
G09

FG (10-6)

120
90
60
30
0
120
90
60
30
0

10 20 30 40 50
G10

FG (10-6)

FG (10-6)

FG (10-6)

FG (10-6)

G10

G02

FG (10-6)

10 20 30 40 50

10 20 30 40 50

25.3

120
90
60
30
0

10 20 30 40 50
G11

FG (10-6)

G04

G08
12.7

120
90
60
30
0

10 20 30 40 50
G12

FG (10-6)

10 20 30 40 50

120
90
60
30
0

120
90
60
30
0

120
90
60
30
0

120
90
60
30
0

10 20 30 40 50
G13

FG (10-6)

FG (10-6)

120
90
60
30
0

G09

12.7 25.3

FG (10-6)

G03

10 20 30 40 50

IL
G01

FG (10-6)

10 20 30 40 50

120
90
60
30
0

FG (10-6)

FG (10-6)

120
90
60
30
0

120
90
60
30
0

FG (10-6)

G02

FG (10-6)

10 20 30 40 50

31.7

FG (10-6)

6.4

19.0

FG (10-6)

31.7

IL
G08

FG (10-6)

19.0

120
90
60
30
0

FG (10-6)

FG (10-6)

6.4

FG (10-6)

120
90
60
30
0

CF
G01

FG (10-6)

CF
120
90
60
30
0

10 20 30 40 50

120
90
60
30
0

G14

FG (10-6)

1314

10 20 30 40 50

f (Hz)

Fig. 8. Amplitude spectra of response strains showing higher harmonic components at different positions along the riser for both CF and IL (Pt 700 N and V 0.57 m/s).

from two or more participating modes. In addition, it can be

observed that the excited modes ascend to the higher modes as
the current speed increases. The participating modes for CF are
mainly limited to the range of 28 for the towing speeds and pretensions considered in this work. The involved modes of IL are much
higher than those of CF, generally covering the range from 3 to 13.
Fig. 10 demonstrates the variation of dominant modes with the
towing speed at the three pre-tensions. The experimental data
shows that the dominant modes increase gradually with the
increase in current speed, from mode 2 to mode 8 for CF and from
5 to 13 for IL. In addition, it can be observed that the order of the IL
dominant mode is generally twice of that in cross ow at the same
current speed and pre-tension. As for a certain mode, it may act as
the dominant mode in a large range of current speed under the
considered three pre-tensions. The dominant modes for CF are
mainly modes 4, 5 and 6, which involve most of the current speeds
in this work, i.e., 0.250.6 m/s, while the most often observed
dominant modes for IL may be recognized as modes of 812.
As discussed previously, the overall response of a exible riser
may combine two or more excited modes over a certain range of
towing speed. However, among these excited modes, the dominant modes discussed here are not always the highest one as the
towing speed increases, which can be conrmed by the results
shown in Fig. 10.
Fig. 11 shows the variation in the dominant frequency of VIV
with the current speed at different pre-tensions. We also included
the vortex shedding frequencies in this gure for reference, which

is evaluated by fst St(V/D) with St 0.18 as before. It can be

observed that the variation of dominant frequencies increases
linearly with the current speed and is in perfect agreement with
the variation of vortex shedding frequency, despite different pretensions were adopted in the present experiment. In addition, it
can be seen that the in-line frequency is about twice the times of
that in cross ow. This is consistent with the results of the
dominant modes shown in Fig. 10.
In our case, the mass ratio of the exible riser is 1.0, and
the linearly increasing trend was observed similar to the
rigid cylinder. For a very small ratio of rigid cylinders, m* 1,
the vibration frequency rises almost linearly as current velocity
increases (Govardhan and Williamson, 2000).
It is worth noting from Figs. 911 that no signicant dependence on the pre-tension was observed in the present laboratory
tests. This was because the interval of 100 N for the pre-tension
was so small that it did not signicantly change the stiffness of
the riser pipe.
3.7. Displacement amplitude and frequency response
The displacement of the riser can be deduced by the modal
approach as described previously. Fig. 12 shows a typical example of
CF displacement histories and their spectra at positions G0114 along
the riser in the case Pt700 N and V0.57 m/s. It can be seen that
the amplitude and the frequency of displacement response vary at
different positions, which is similar to the strain signals shown in

J.N. Song et al. / Ocean Engineering 38 (2011) 13081322

CF, 600 N

0.6
0.009
0.008
0.007
0.006
0.005
0.004
0.003
0.002
0.001

V (m/s)

0.5
0.4
0.3

8
Mode #

10

12

CF, 700 N

0.6
0.009
0.008
0.007
0.006
0.005
0.004
0.003
0.002
0.001

0.4
0.3

8
Mode #

10

12

14

IL, 700 N
0.009
0.008
0.007
0.006
0.005
0.004
0.003
0.002
0.001

0.5
V (m/s)

V (m/s)

14

0.5

0.4
0.3

0.2

0.2
2

8
Mode #

10

12

14

CF, 800 N

0.6

0.4
0.3
0.2

8
Mode #

10

12

14

IL, 800 N
0.009
0.008
0.007
0.006
0.005
0.004
0.003
0.002
0.001

0.5
V (m/s)

0.009
0.008
0.007
0.006
0.005
0.004
0.003
0.002
0.001

0.5
V (m/s)

0.4

0.2
2

0.6

0.009
0.008
0.007
0.006
0.005
0.004
0.003
0.002
0.001

0.3

0.2

0.6

IL, 600 N

0.5
V (m/s)

0.6

1315

0.4
0.3
0.2

8
Mode #

10

12

14

8
Mode #

10

12

14

Fig. 9. Standard deviations of modal weights versus towing speed.

20

20

CF,600 N
IL,600 N
CF,700 N
IL,700 N
CF,800 N
IL,800 N

16
Dominant frequency (Hz)

Dominant mode

15

CF,600 N
IL,600 N
CF,700 N
IL,700 N
CF,800 N
IL,800 N

10

12

1 fst
2 fst

0.2

0.3

0.4
V (m/s)

0.5

0.6

0.2

0.3

0.4
V (m/s)

0.5

0.6

Fig. 10. Dominant mode versus the velocity.

Fig. 11. Dominant frequency versus the velocity.

Fig. 6. In addition, higher harmonic components even up to the fth

harmonics can be observed clearly in the right column of the gure.
These higher harmonic components are excited simultaneously as

the fundamental component. Moreover, the higher harmonics are

steady over the entire duration of the test though they vary along the
length of the riser pipe.

1316

J.N. Song et al. / Ocean Engineering 38 (2011) 13081322

2
FG /D

AG /D

2
0
-2

10

15

10

10.5

FG /D
10

15

10

10.5

10

15

10

10.5

10

15

10

10.5

AG /D

FG /D
0

10

15

10

10.5

AG /D

FG /D
0

10

15

10

10.5

FG /D
15

10

10.5

10

15

10

10.5

10

15

10

10.5

10

15

10

10.5

AG /D

FG /D
0

10

15

10

10.5

FG /D
5

10

15

10

10.5

10

15

20 25
G05

10

15

20 25
G06

10

15

20 25
G07

10

15

20 25
G08

10

15

20 25
G09

10

15

20 25
G10

10

15

20 25
G11

10

15

20 25
G12

10

15

20 25
G13

10

15

10

10.5

10

15

20 25
G14

10 15
f (Hz)

1
0

11

2
FG /D

AG /D
AG /D

1
0

11

2
FG /D

2
AG /D

0
-2

20 25
G04

1
0

11

-2

15

10

1
0

11

-2

1
0

11

-2

1
0

11
FG /D

0
-2

20 25
G03

1
0

11
FG /D

10

FG /D

AG /D
AG /D
AG /D

2
AG /D

-2

15

10

1
0

11

-2

1
0

11

-2

20 25
G02

-2

15

1
0

11

-2

10

1
0

11

0
-2

1
0

11
FG /D

0
-2

AG /D

FG /D

AG /D
AG /D

0
-2

1
0

11

G01

10
t (s)

15

10

10.5
t (s)

11

1
0

Fig. 12. CF displacement history and its spectrum at positions G01G14 along the riser, Pt 700 N and V 0.57m/s.

20

25

J.N. Song et al. / Ocean Engineering 38 (2011) 13081322

In Fig. 13 there is an increasing trend of maxima of displacement

amplitudes (Amax/D) as current velocity increases for both CF and IL
responses. It can be seen that the maxima of displacement amplitudes in CF generally exceed 1.0D and even reach up to 2.0D at high
current velocity. Compared with those of CF, the maxima of
displacement amplitudes in IL are much lower. However, high
scatter can also be observed in the gure. This might be due to
the complex variation of the added mass and hydrodynamic damping for the long exible cylinder. Here it should be pointed out that
the values at high velocity cases might be a little overestimated
especially for the high velocity. This is because the estimates of the
displacement are sensitive to the judgment of the lowest mode,
which has been mentioned previously in Section 3.1.
The largest response amplitudes of vortex-induced vibration of
the long exible pipe in cross ow were found to be in the range
of 1.02.0D, with a mean value of 1.5D. This is much higher than
0.7D as reported by Huera-Huarte and Bearman (2009) in a
exible cylinder experiment with a small aspect ratio of 94. In
addition, it is interesting to note that the amplitudes were over
1.5D in two degrees of freedom exibly mounted rigid body
experiments with mass ratios below 5 (Jauvtis and Williamson,
2004), where a new mode of vortex formation 2T comprising two
triplets of vortices per cycle was signicantly related. Unfortunately, we cannot determine whether the 2T mode has a direct
relationship with the large response amplitude as well as with the

1317

higher harmonics since there is no particle image velocimetry

(PIV) equipped in the present experiment.

3.8. Multi-mode response

From the previously described experimental results, it has been
shown that both single-mode and multi-mode responses can be
observed for a long exible riser, despite the latter one happens
more often. It is interesting that the excited modes of the multimode response were often found to vibrate at the same frequency.
Fig. 14 shows an example of the variation of modal weight in
CF direction under V 0.30 m/s and Pt 700 N. It can be observed
that modes 4 and 5 are obviously excited, but the amplitudes of
modal weights from modes 3 and 6 are very small. As far as the
two excited modes, modes 4 and 5, are concerned, they vibrate at
the same frequency despite having a phase lag.
Following the same procedure and considering all the sampling
points along the riser model, we illustrate the overall scenery of the
excited modes and the corresponding vibration frequencies in
Figs. 15 and 16 for CF and IL, respectively. It can be seen from
Fig. 15 that at these towing speeds considered the excited modes
vibrated at the same frequency. Moreover, the excited modes
appeared continuously and the middle mode generally had the
largest response amplitude for most of the cases. Finally, one can

1.5

3.0

600 N
700 N
800 N

600 N
700 N
800 N
1.0
Amax/D

Amax/D

2.0

0.5

1.0

0.0

0.0
0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4
V (m/s)

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4
V (m/s)

0.5

0.6

0.7

Fig. 13. Maxima of response amplitude (Amax/D) versus current velocity. (a) CF and (b) IL.

1.5
1.0

M03
M04
M05
M06

0.6

0.5
Aw/D

wn/D

0.8

M03
M04
M05
M06

0.4

0.0
0.2

-0.5
-1.0

0.0
2.0

2.5

3.0
t (s)

3.5

4.0

2.0

3.0

4.0
f (Hz)

5.0

Fig. 14. Histories (a) and amplitude spectra (b) of modal weights of the excited modes in CF, Pt 700 N and V 0.30 m/s.

6.0

1318

J.N. Song et al. / Ocean Engineering 38 (2011) 13081322

0.8

0.8

0.6

0.6
Aw/D

Aw/D

3.4Hz
2.7Hz
0.4
M02
M03
M04
M05

0.2

0.0
1.0

M03
M04
M05
M06

0.2

0.0
2.0

3.0
f (Hz)

4.0

5.0

2.0

0.8

3.0

4.0
f (Hz)

5.0

6.0

0.8
M04
M05
M06
M07

0.6
Aw/D

0.6
Aw/D

0.4

0.4
5.4Hz
0.2

0.4

6.6Hz
M05
M06
M07
M08

0.2

0.0
3.0

0.0
4.0

5.0
f (Hz)

6.0

7.0

5.0

6.0

7.0
f (Hz)

8.0

9.0

Fig. 15. Multi-mode response in CF direction, Pt 700 N. (a) V 0.24 m/s, Pt 700 N, (b) V 0.30 m/s, Pt 700 N, (c) V 0.48 m/s, Pt 700 N and (d) V 0.60 m/s, Pt 700 N.

0.3

0.3
M04
M05
M06
M07
5.3Hz

0.1

0.2
Aw/D

Aw/D

0.2

M06
M07
M08
M09

0.1

6.8Hz

0.0

0.0
2.0

4.0

6.0

4.0

8.0

6.0

f (Hz)

8.0

10.0

f (Hz)

0.3

0.3
M09
M10
M11
M12

0.2
Aw/D

Aw/D

0.2

M11
M12
M13
M14

10.4Hz

0.1

0.0
8.0

10.0

12.0
f (Hz)

13.2Hz
0.1

14.0

0.0
10.0

12.0

14.0

16.0

f (Hz)

Fig. 16. Multi-mode response in IL direction, Pt 700 N. (a) V 0.24 m/s, Pt 700 N, (b) V 0.30 m/s, Pt 700 N, (c) V 0.48 m/s, Pt 700 N and (d) V 0.60 m/s, Pt 700 N.

J.N. Song et al. / Ocean Engineering 38 (2011) 13081322

0.0
0.0

1.0

V = 0.42m/s

0.5

0.0
0.0

0.5
z/L

1.0

0.5
z/L

1.0

V = 0.48m/s

0.5

0.0
0.0

0.5
z/L

0.5

0.0
0.0

1.0

1.0

1.0

V = 0.30m/s
Astd /D

1.0

0.5

11

The integration in time is carried out over an interval T in

which the steady current speed was achieved. In order to obtain
accurate results of the standard deviation, the integral time T
should be sufciently large. More than 30 periods of vibration for
each participating mode were adopted in this work. It can be seen
from Fig. 17 that the maximum displacement standard deviation
in CF direction generally exceeds 0.5D and even reaches up to
0.8D at V0.36 m/s. In addition, one can also observe that the
maximum values commonly appear adjacent to the riser model
ends. It indicates that the parts near the riser ends may suffer
more severe damage from the VIV under the ambient uniform
ow, which should be considered seriously in the practical
engineering design. Moreover, this gure illustrates the order of
the predominant participating mode, which gradually increases
with the increase in current speed, for example, the dominant
mode at V0.18 m/s may be mode 2, increase to mode 5 at
V0.36 m/s and even mode 6 at V0.54 m/s.
The asymmetry of spatial distribution of the standard deviation
of temporal displacement along the length of the riser, however, is
observed for most of the current speeds as shown in Fig. 17, which
was also reported in the experiment of Trim et al. (2005). They
believed that it is mainly due to the inherent unstable tendencies of
uidstructure interaction and speculated that the uneven spacing
of gages in their tests may tend to promote such instability.
However, considering that the numerical simulation (Willden and
Graham, 2004) and the present experiment are not troubled by the
uneven arrangement of gage, it is necessary to further investigate
the essential physical mechanism behind the asymmetry of VIV
response along the length of the riser. In this work, we attempt to
explore the above mentioned asymmetry response from the viewpoint of mode superposition.
We rst show two ideal cases of single-mode responses, e.g.
modes 3 and 4. It can be seen in Fig. 18 that the spatial distribution

V = 0.24m/s

0.0
0.0

1.0

Astd /D

Astd /D

1.0

0.5
z/L

s
Z
1 T
Astd zm
yzm ,tyzm ,t2 dt
T 0

Astd /D

0.5

From an engineering point of view, one may concern with the

position of the maximum displacement induced by VIV. Fig. 17
shows the spatial distribution of the standard deviation of
temporal displacement for CF at several typical towing speeds
under Pt 700 N. The standard deviation of temporal displacement is evaluated by the following formula:

Astd /D

1.0

V = 0.18m/s
Astd /D

Astd /D

1.0

3.9. Asymmetry of the bare pipe response in uniform ow

0.5
z/L

0.0
0.0

0.5
z/L

0.5

1.0

V = 0.54m/s

0.5

V = 0.36m/s

0.0
0.0

1.0

Astd /D

observe that the vibration frequencies of excited modes increased as

the current speed was increased.
The phenomenon of multiple excited modes vibrating at the
same frequency has been reported by Willden and Graham
(2004). They investigated the transverse vortex-induced vibration
of a long (L/D 1544) exible pipe (mass ratio, 1.03.0) subjected
to a uniform current prole by means of numerical simulations. It
was found that the uid ow is able to force each structural mode
to respond at a frequency far from its natural frequency. In
addition, Chaplin et al. (2005) have pointed out that the VIV
responses in their experimental tests included signicant contributions from several modes at a frequency controlled by lockin of the dominant mode. As a convincing proof, the present
experimental tests conrmed well the previous investigations.
As far as the dependence on the current speed of the vibrating
frequency under excited multi-mode is concerned, it will be
further examined later on. Here we are focused on the response
associated with the in-line vibration of the riser model, which has
been less investigated previously, as shown in Fig. 16. It can be
seen that the phenomenon of multi-mode vibrating at the same
frequency also happened in the in-line response. Compared with
cross-ow vibration, the amplitudes of IL response are much
smaller. In addition, the excited modes are higher than that
observed in cross-ow direction. The vibration frequency of IL
response is about twice of that of CF under the same condition as
compared with those shown in Fig. 15.
The response frequency of the excited mode was observed to
be not necessarily close to the natural frequency of the pipe in
still water, but agree well with the vortex shedding frequency.
Figs. 15 and 16 show that the excited modes vibrated at the same
frequency in many cases for both CF and IL. Moreover, the excited
modes were adjacent and the middle mode had the greatest
response amplitude for the most cases. This indicates that the
overall response of the riser combined signicant contribution
from two or more modes over a range of towing speeds.
It is noted that the vibration frequency of the multi-mode
response here was focused on the fundamental frequency, at which
all the participating modes were excited. It can be observed from
Figs. 15 and 16 that the response amplitudes with higher velocities
seemed to be lower than those with lower velocities in both CF and
IL directions. For example, the amplitude Aw/D is about 0.6 at
V0.24 m/s, while the value is about 0.3 at V 0.48 m/s as shown
in Fig. 15 for CF response. This is because that higher harmonics
have more contribution at these high velocities and thus the
fundamental frequency response has less contribution.

1319

1.0

Fig. 17. Spatial distribution of the standard deviation of temporal displacement for CF.

0.5
z/L

1.0

V = 0.60m/s

0.5

0.0
0.0

0.5
z/L

1.0

1320

J.N. Song et al. / Ocean Engineering 38 (2011) 13081322

Second, we examined the effect of b in Fig. 20 by assuming

l 1 and y 0, which means the two participating modes have

Mode 4
Mode 3

0.5

0.0
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

z/L
Fig. 18. Spatial distribution of Astd/D of a single-mode response.

= 0.5
= 1.0
= 2.0

Astd/D

2.0

1.0

0.0
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

z/L
Fig. 19. Spatial distribution of Astd/D with different values of l (b 1 and y 0).

y3,4 z,t

4
X

wn tjn z A3 sino3 tsin

n3

A4 sino4 t ysin

4pz
L

2.0

3pz
L

1.0

0.5

12

where A3 and A4 denote the displacement amplitudes from modes

3 and 4, respectively, and o3 and o4 correspond to the circular
frequencies of modes 3 and 4, respectively, and y (0 r y o 2p) is
the phase lag between modes 4 and 3. For convenience, we dene
l A4/A3, b o4/o3. It is expected that the superposition will be
mainly affected by the ratios l A4/A3, b o4/o3 and the phase
lag of y. For the purpose of illustration, assume A3 is 1.0D and o3
is 1.0 rad/s as the base references and then consider the effects of
l, b and y on the response of displacement of standard deviation
along the riser.
First, we investigated the inuence of l by xing b 1 and
y 0. Fig. 19 shows the variation of Astd/D with respect to z/L for
multi-mode case with different values of l. It can be observed
from this gure that the variation of Astd/D with respect to z/L is
typically asymmetric though there are shape nodes (Astd/D 0)
except for those at two ends of the riser. In addition, the shape
of the present multi-mode response is mainly governed by
the participating mode, which has the larger modal amplitude.
The largest Astd/D appears always adjacent to the riser end of
z/l 0, and the amplitudes of Astd/D decrease gradually as
z/l approaching to 1.0.

= 1.0
= 2/3
= 1.5
= 2.0

=1

1.5
Astd/D

of displacement standard deviation (Astd/D) is perfectly periodical

and fully symmetric along the length of the riser, which is quite
distinct to those observed in Fig. 17.
Further, we consider a multi-mode response involving simultaneously the above two modes. Referring to Eq. (6), the combination of displacement from modes 3 and 4, denoted by y3,4, can
be written as follows:

the same amplitude and the phase lag is zero. It can be seen that
the spatial distributions of Astd/D of two modes with different
frequencies are symmetric with respect to the middle point of
z/L0.5, and thought there are no shape nodes (Astd/D 0) except
for those at two ends of the riser, while the case of b 1.0 is
indeed identical to the case of l 1.0 plotted in Fig. 19. In
addition, it can be observed that the largest amplitude of b 1.0
is greater than those of two modes with different frequencies. In
another view, the multi-mode response involving modes with the
same response frequency can be interpreted as a new singlemode response, which behaves a new mode shape different from
the normal sine mode shape.
Third, Fig. 21 shows the dependence on y of the variation of
Astd/D with z/L as l 1 and b 1. It can be observed that the
location of the largest response depends greatly on the phase lag
between the involved modes. Particularly with the present
assumptions of identical mode amplitudes and frequencies, the
largest response amplitude occurs on the left part of the riser
when 0 o y o p/2 and 3p/2o y o2p, while it occurs on the right
half part as p/2o y o3p/2. The response is found to be symmetric
along the rise at y p/2 and y 3p/2. In addition, Fig. 21 also
indicates that there are no nodes (Astd/D 0) except for those of
two ends of the riser if y is not equal to 0 or p.
In this section we focused on the problem of asymmetrical
variation of the standard deviation of displacement for CF along
the riser model and explained the physical mechanism behind this
phenomenon by means of theoretical analysis. It was revealed
clearly that the asymmetry of the bare pipe response in uniform
ow mainly resulted from the modal composition of multi-modal
VIV with different modal amplitudes, modal frequencies and the
phase lags between the involved modes.

0.0
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

z/L
Fig. 20. Spatial distribution of Astd/D with different values of b (l 1 and y 0).

2.0

= 0.0
= /2
=
= 3/2

1.5
Astd/D

Astd/D

1.0

1.0

0.5

0.0
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

z/L
Fig. 21. Spatial distribution of Astd/D with different values of y (l 1, and b 1).

J.N. Song et al. / Ocean Engineering 38 (2011) 13081322

3.10. Spatial mean and maximum of displacement standard

deviation against current velocity
Spatial distribution of temporal displacement standard deviation can reect the magnitude of VIV responses. The spatial mean
of standard deviation of displacement, smean, is evaluated by

smean

1321

Although no signicant dependence on the pre-tension was

observed in the present laboratory tests as discussed previously, it
still can be observed from Figs. 22 and 23 that the series of pretension 800 N had the lowest response and those of pre-tension
600 N had the largest response.
4. Conclusions

M
1 X
A z
M i 1 std i

13

where M is the total number of points calculated along the length

of the riser, Astd denotes the standard deviation of displacement
over time at zi. The spatial maximum of standard deviation of
displacement, smax, is evaluated by

smax Max Astd zi 

14

1rirM

Fig. 22 shows the spatial mean of standard deviation of

displacement, normalized by the diameter of riser model D, as
functions of the current speed at different pre-tensions. There is
an increasing trend in both CF and IL. In addition, the values for CF
is greater than those for IL, which agrees well with the previous
research results that the response magnitude of the CF response is
greater than that of the IL response. These varying tendencies are
generally in accordance with the observations of Swithenbank
et al. (2008).
The variations of spatial maximum of temporal displacement
standard deviation for CF and IL are shown in Fig. 23. One may
nd that the overall tendency of current speed and pre-tension of
smax is generally similar to that of smean shown in Fig. 22 for CF
and IL, respectively, despite having larger absolute values and
being more scattered. Fig. 23(a) denotes that the maximum of CF
displacement may reach almost up to 1.0D and at least 0.5D. As
far as the IL response is concerned, the maximum of smax is about
0.4D at the ultimate current velocity of this work.

0.7

0.4

600 N
700 N
800 N

600 N
700 N
800 N

0.3
mean/D

0.6
mean/D

Laboratory tests were conducted on vortex-induced vibration of

a 28.04 m long exible riser model with a large aspect ratio of 1750.
The experiments were carried out in uniform currents using towing
carriage in a wave basin in three series of tests with different initial
end tensions. Fiber optic strain gages were adopted to obtain good
quality results of the frequencies and amplitudes of responses in
both cross-ow and in-line directions.
The experimental results showed that the cross-ow dominant
mode might reach up to 6 and the in-line dominant mode over 12
with dominant frequencies given by a Strouhal number of 0.18.
Although ignored by many analysis codes, in-line response is
observed to be of the same order magnitude as cross-ow response,
which is consistent with ndings by Tognarelli et al. (2004) and
Trim et al. (2005). This suggests that both in-line and cross-ow
response should be considered seriously for a practical design.
It was conrmed by the experimental results that the riser
pipe vibrated multi-modally despite it being subject to a uniform
current prole, as reported in a CFD numerical study by Willden
and Graham (2004). Moreover, all the excited modes vibrated at
the Strouhal frequency. These observations can have some direct
implications in offshore riser design code especially those empirical models based on an empirical understanding of vortexinduced vibrations.
The asymmetry of the bare pipe response in uniform ow was
observed in this experiment. The physical mechanism behind this
phenomenon was analyzed by means of theoretical analysis.

0.5
0.4
0.3

0.2
0.1
0.0

0.2

-0.1
0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4 0.5
V (m/s)

0.6

0.7

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4 0.5
V (m/s)

0.6

0.7

Fig. 22. Spatial mean of temporal displacement standard deviation. (a) CF and (b) IL.

max/D

0.6

600 N
700 N
800 N

0.4
max/D

1.2

0.8

0.2
0.0

0.6
0.4
0.1

600 N
700 N
800 N

0.2

0.3

0.4 0.5
V (m/s)

0.6

0.7

-0.2
0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4 0.5
V (m/s)

0.6

Fig. 23. Spatial maximum of temporal displacement standard deviation. (a) CF and (b) IL.

0.7

1322

J.N. Song et al. / Ocean Engineering 38 (2011) 13081322

It was revealed that the asymmetrical distribution of displacement mainly resulted from the modal composition of multimodal VIV with different modal amplitudes, modal frequencies
and the phase lags between the involved modes.
Higher harmonics of the VIV response such as the third, fourth
and fth vibration components were observed in this laboratory
experiment of the long exible pipe. These higher harmonic components are excited simultaneously as the fundamental component. In
addition, the higher harmonics are steady over the entire duration of
the test even if they varied along the length of the riser pipe. It is
believed that the higher harmonics contribute signicantly to the
fatigue damage due to their high vibration frequencies.

Acknowledgments
This work was mainly supported by the National High-Tech
Research and Development Program (863 Program) of China
with Grant no. 2006AA09A103. This work was also partially
supported by the program from NSFC of China with Grant no.
50921001 and the open fund from SLCOE with Grant no. LP0904.
The authors appreciate greatly Dr. Ren Liang at Dalian University
of Technology for his kind help with ber optic strain gages.
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