Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

In many engineering applications where ducts containing clusters of bluff bodies are encountered, such as tube bundles of heat exchangers and boilers, cascades of compressor blades and guide/turning vanes in ducts and radial diffusers, unfortunate operating conditions could lead to flow-excited acoustic resonance. When acoustic resonance materialize in heat exchanger tube bundles, the generation of acute noise and/or excessive vibration of the tubes could occur. This will often lead to extensive damage and/or complete failure of heat exchangers. Since this phenomenon is not yet fully understood, it can be dangerously unpredictable. The purpose of the proposed research is to improve our fundamental understanding of the flow-sound interaction mechanisms for the case of multiple bare and finned circular cylinders in cross-flow and to extend this knowledge to the more complex case of a full tube array. The findings of the proposed research will be directly applicable to heat exchanger tube bundles. It is believed that the findings of this research will provide a step forward in developing reliable design guidelines to predict, control and avoid the occurrence of acoustic resonance in heat exchanger tube bundles. Such guidelines are currently not available in the literature. Increasing the safety and reliability of such equipment will directly benefit the Canadian economy.