Abstract
Using wind tunnel, experimental approaches were employed to investigate fluidelastic instability of tube bundles, subjected to uniform cross flow. There are several flow-induced vibration excitation mechanisms, such as fluidelastic instability, periodic wake shedding resonance, turbulence-induced excitation and acoustic resonance, which could cause excessive vibration in shell-and tube heat exchanges. Fluidelastic is the most important vibration excitation mechanism for heat exchanger tube bundles subjected to cross flow. The system comprised of cantilevered flexible cylinder(s) and rigid cylinders of normal square array, In order to see the characteristics of flow in tube bundles, particle image velocimetry was used. From a practical design point of view, Fluidelastic instability may be expressed simply in terms of dimensionless flow velocity and dimensionless mass-damping. The threshold flow velocity for dynamic instability of cylinder rows is evaluated and the data for design guideline is proposed for the tube bundles of normal square array.