Date of Submission

4-18-2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering

Department

Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

Advisor

Dr. Byungik Chang

Committee Member

Dr. Maria-Isabel Carnasciali

Committee Member

Dr. Ravi Gorthala

Keywords

Fluid flow, CFD codes, Fluid-structural interaction, High mast light poles, Wind tunnel experiments, Dodecagonal cylinder

LCSH

Fluid dynamics, Computational fluid dynamics, Aerodynamic measurements

Abstract

There are fundamental problems in fluid dynamics. One common problem is fluid flow around cylinder-shaped bodies which range from circular to multi-sided polygons. These basic geometric shapes are found in various applications. With the increased availability of computational power, the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) becomes an avenue for studying fluid flow around theses shapes. The fluid flow over cylindrical bodies is a widely studied problem used to validate the accuracy and reliability of CFD codes before working on more complex engineering problems. This validation is done by comparing selected flow parameters to experimental results to determine the accuracy of the CFD codes.

Fluid-Structural Interaction (FSI) problems are of interest in mechanical and civil engineering fields due to how fatigue and oscillatory loading from fluid motions can cause failure of complex machinery or structures. The current study involves the use of CFD to simulate the fluid flow around a dodecagonal cylinder. Dodecagonal cylinders are typically used for High Mast Light Poles (HMLP). Such poles are often subjected to wind induced loading from various types of flow. Work has been done to study the effects on HMLP structures with accompanying wind tunnel experiments used to investigate the dynamic behavior of the system.

The objectives for the study are to simulate the fluid flow around a dodecagonal cylinder in CFD for different conditions and validate the computational results with experimental wind tunnel results. Both static and dynamic modeling of a dodecagonal cylinder using CFD produced values similar to wind tunnel test results.

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