Large Eddy Simulation of Free Motion of Marine Riser using OpenFOAM

In this study, the free motion of a riser due to vortex shedding was numerically simulated with Large Eddy Simulation (LES) and Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) turbulence models. A numerical simulation program was developed by applying the Rhie-Chow interpolation method to the pressure correction of the OpenFOAM standard solver pimpleDyMFoam. To verify the developed program, the vortex shedding around the fixed riser at Re = 3900 was calculated, and the results were compared with the existing experimental and numerical data. Moreover, the vortex-induced vibration of a riser supported by a linear spring was numerically simulated while varying the spring constant. The results are compared with published direct numerical simulation (DNS) results. The present calculation results show that the numerical method is appropriate for simulating the vortex-induced motion of a riser, including lock-in phenomena.