**Abstract**

Marine riser is a key equipment connecting a floating platform and a seabed wellhead. Vortex-induced vibration (VIV) is the main cause of the fatigue damage of the riser. The prediction of marine riser VIV is very difficult because of its strong non-linearity, instability and uncertainty. In recent years, many numerical models of VIV of marine riser have been developed to explore the mechanism of marine riser VIV, providing scientific theoretical basis and practical engineering methods for vibration control and engineering design of marine riser. Combined with the authors' own recent research, this chapter discusses the research progress on marine riser VIV in the ocean engineering, including phenomenon mechanism analysis and different numerical research methods.

**Keywords:** fluid-structure interaction, marine riser, numerical simulation, structural dynamics, vortex-induced vibration

#### **1. Introduction**

As a key part of the deep-sea oil and gas exploitation system, the marine riser known as the "life line of offshore oil" is an important transport component connecting the undersea oil field with the ocean platform, as shown in **Figure 1**. In the process of operation, the marine riser bears the impact, erosion and other damage of seawater, and it needs to be repaired or renewed frequently. Its service life is only 2–3 years. Marine riser related technology has become one of the main obstacles to human being's deep-sea development. As the key structure connecting floating platform and underwater production system, marine riser generally bears the axial tension. The lower end connects with the seabed wellhead through the universal joint, and the upper end is coordinated with the slip joint on the platform or the bottom of the ship to carry out drilling, liquid guiding, mud guiding and other work. It is a necessary equipment for the deep-sea oil and gas development and transportation. In deep-sea environments, currents passing through the riser may induce the rear edge of the riser releasing the vortex alternately, known as "Karman vortex street". The presence of "Karmen vortex street" causes the riser structure vibrating simultaneously in the cross-flow (CF) and the in-line (IL) directions, and the vibration of the

*New Innovations in Engineering Education and Naval Engineering*

**Figure 1.** *Schematic diagram of marine riser operation.*

riser will in turn change the vortex characteristics of the flow field. This phenomenon of fluid structure interaction is called "VIV". When the frequency of vortex release is close to the natural frequency of the riser structure, the phenomenon of "Lock-in" occurs. With the significant increase of the vibration amplitude of the riser, fatigue damage and even failure of the riser structure are often caused. In 2011, the "Gannet Alpha" drilling platform of shell oil company on the North Sea area of the United Kingdom suffered a sudden accident, resulting in the fatigue fracture of the oil pipeline connected with the platform. As a result, about 21.6 billion tons of crude oil leaked into the sea, causing serious pollution to the surrounding environment and causing major economic losses. However, the strong non-linearity, non-stationarity and uncertainty of the VIV of marine riser make it extremely difficult to predict the VIV of marine riser. How to accurately predict the VIV of marine riser and provide a more comprehensive theoretical basis for the design and daily maintenance of marine riser has been an ideal goal pursued by engineers and scientists.

For the study of VIV of marine riser, early scholars started from the simplest riser section, and now they have carried out a very rich experimental and numerical simulation study on two-dimensional (2D) rigid cylinder, including the study of flow around fixed cylinder, forced vibration and self-excited vibration of cylinder. The study of a rigid cylinder VIV (2D VIV) establishes many basic concepts of VIV, explores the law of rigid cylinder VIV, and lays a foundation for the construction of three-dimensional (3D) riser VIV algorithm model. However, the vibration of marine riser shows the characteristics of high order vibration and the vortex released by the rear edge of the riser has obvious 3D characteristics. Therefore, the research results based on the 2D VIV fail to provide complete technical support for the 3D marine riser. This prompted the researchers to study the VIV of 3D marine riser based on the research results of a rigid cylinder VIV. Due to the different emphases of the study on the VIV of a rigid cylinder and slender flexible riser, there are also many differences in the research methods and research hotspots. So far, there have been abundant researches on VIV, and many reviews have summarized the results of studies on the VIV of a rigid cylinder or a riser. For example, Williamson [1], Williamson and Govardhan [2, 3], Sarpkaya [4], Gabbai and Benaroya [5], Bearman [6], Wu et al. [7] have summarized the research results of a cylindrical structure or a

**99**

*Vortex-Induced Vibration of a Marine Riser: Numerical Simulation and Mechanism…*

tional fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational structure dynamics (CSD).

The numerical prediction method based on empirical model is suitable for solving practical engineering problems, because the physical model is clear, and the calculation is simple. Empirical models mainly include wake oscillator model, modal superposition model, statistical model, etc. Among them, wake oscillator model and its improvement model are most widely used. Bishop and Hassan [8] and Hartlen and Currie [9] proposed the wake oscillator model and described the hydrodynamic force with the nonlinear Van de Pol equation. In the model, the hydrodynamic equation is coupled with the vibration equation which describes the transverse VIV of the structure. This model can simulate many phenomena in the experiment qualitatively. Iwan and Blevins [10] and Iwan [77] deduced the coupling equation of wake oscillator and structural motion based on momentum conservation principle. The model has clear physical meaning and well reflects the hydrodynamic characteristics of VIV. The empirical parameters in the equation are determined by the test results of forced vibration. Therefore, the wake oscillator model is highly dependent on the empirical coefficient, and the empirical parameters selected by different wake oscillator models are greatly different. Therefore, even for the same research object, the prediction results of different wake oscillators are also significantly different. As demonstrated by Chaplin et al. [11], the amplitude response predicted by fourteen empirical models for the prediction of VIV in the same physical experiment is smaller than the experimental value, and the prediction results of each empirical model are also significantly different. The wake oscillator model has been widely accepted as a mainstream semi-empirical and semi-theoretical algorithm for a long time. However, the inherent deficiency of the algorithm lies in that the hydrodynamic frequency of the algorithm is obtained mainly through the calculation of the St number (St) obtained by the experiments of fixed circular cylinder. However, the frequency of hydrodynamic force of circular VIV of cylinder differs greatly from the frequency corresponding to the St number in the flow around the fixed cylinder. Therefore, in most cases, this algorithm can only obtain qualitative results, and its accuracy is greatly different from the experimental results. Facchinetti et al. [12] improved the dynamic characteristics of the wake oscillator model and, respectively, considered the coupling effect of displacement, velocity and acceleration on the wake oscillator. By comparing the prediction results of different coupling modes with the experimental results, it is found that the coupling of acceleration and lift induced by vortices can reflect the VIV characteristics of rigid cylinders quantitatively. Facchinetti et al. [13] further extended the model and applied it to VIV response of slender flexible cables. Mathelin and Langre [14] extend the work of Facchinetti et al. [13] to predict VIV response in shear flow. Furnes and Sørensen [15], Ge et al. [16] and Li et al. [17] proposed the simulation of dual-coupling oscillator model to simulate flow direction and transverse pulse dynamics, but the wake oscillator processed separately in both directions could not accurately predict the phase difference between flow direction and transverse response. Srinil [18]

riser VIV in recent decades. In this chapter, the numerical simulation study of marine riser VIV in recent decades are summarized, and the development process, advantages and disadvantages of different numerical research methods are analyzed and summarized. Finally, the research progress of current basic research and hot issues in engineering practice is discussed. The numerical analysis methods of marine riser are mainly divided into two categories: one is the empirical model method based on experimental data, the other is the numerical simulation method based on computa-

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.82516*

**2. Empirical model**

*Vortex-Induced Vibration of a Marine Riser: Numerical Simulation and Mechanism… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.82516*

riser VIV in recent decades. In this chapter, the numerical simulation study of marine riser VIV in recent decades are summarized, and the development process, advantages and disadvantages of different numerical research methods are analyzed and summarized. Finally, the research progress of current basic research and hot issues in engineering practice is discussed. The numerical analysis methods of marine riser are mainly divided into two categories: one is the empirical model method based on experimental data, the other is the numerical simulation method based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational structure dynamics (CSD).
