Experimental study on vortex induced vibration of risers with fairing considering wake interference

Vortex Induced Vibration (VIV) is a typical flow-structure interference phenomenon which causes an unsteady flow pattern due to vortex shedding at or near the structure's natural frequency leading to resonant vibrations. VIV may cause premature fatigue failure of marine risers and pipelines. A test model was carried out to investigate the role of a stationary fairing by varying the caudal horn angle to suppress riser VIV taking into account the effect of wake interference. The test results show significant reduction of VIV for risers disposed in tandem and side-by-side. In general, fairing with a caudal horn of 45° and 60° are efficient in quelling VIV in risers. The results also reveal fairing can reduce the drag load of risers arranged side-by-side. For the tandem configuration, a fairing can reduce the drag load of an upstream riser, but will enlarge the drag force of the downstream riser.