VIBRATION OF TRASH RACK BARS A. L. Rakhmanova and I. O. Rybak UDC 627.

881

When designing intake structures it is natural to try to reduce the dimensions of the intake to reduce the cost of these structures. However, this is related to an increase of the approach velocities to the intakes, which entails an increase of losses at the inlet and, in particular, on the trash racks and also, as experience shows, to breakage of the racks themselves and their bars. As special investigations and on-site inspections of racks revealed, the causes of breaEage of the bars are fatigue damages at places of stress concentration as a result of intensified vibration of the bars. At present there is no unified opinion among investigators as to the causes of vibrations. Some investigators consider the main cause of vibrations to be resonance associated with the coincidence of the frequencies of shedding of vortices from the bar edges with the natural frequencies of vibrations of the bars in water. Others consider the main cause of vibrations of the bars to be self-excited vibrations, particularly those related to the phenomena of flutter. Special investigations of these problems have been carried out during recent years in the USSR at the Moscow Special Design Department of Steel Hydraulic Structures (Mosgidrostal') and the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Hydraulic Engineering (VNIIG). Vibrations of bars and the field of pressure fluctuations around them were studied in full-scale tests on a heated trash rack (Fig. !a).

A-A

jt ]L ]]

iI

.......

~--

.,,,,:,

f--(

I~A

B-B

Fig. i. Schemes of trash racks: a) Heated rack; b) unheated rack; i, 2) bars; 3) pressure-fluctuation sensor.
71

) ~-Z_~////////////~g//_////~v/////2///77777~ % j_~////////////,y////~'////,yz//_wYz~4

k<

b ~176

Translated from Gidrotekhnicheskoe Stroitel~stvo, No. 8, pp. 32-34, August, 1983.

424

0018-8220/83/1708-0424507.50

9 1984 Plenum Publishing Corporation

m.H~

80
50

4,0 __-----4 50
I

J
]

!
__)='ar"~

i
] ) ' ) ] ~r

2O !C 0

42 ~4 ~8 g8 ~0 ~Z ~q ~ m / s e c

Fig. 2. Frequencies of pressure fluctuations and vibrations of the bars: i) Curve Sh = f~/v = 0.275; f is the frequency of shedding of vortices; I, I!, III) natural frequencies of bars of forms, i~ 2, 3); o) experimentally measured frequencies of pressure fluctuations. The vibrations were investigated by small strain gauges installed in different sections over the height of the bars. The field of pressure fluctuations was studied by means of small inductive pressure transducers installed in the middle section of the bar height: The casing of the transducers and their lines were inside the bars. The bar vibrations and pressure fluctuations were recorded in the entire range of operating capacities of the unit with an interval of 10% of the maximum capacity. The water velocities before the rack in this case varied from 0 to 1.7 m/sec. Three groups of bars angles at 0 ~ 7 ~ , and 15 ~ to the direction of the flow were investigated. The following characteristics of the vibrations of the bars and pressure fluctuations on them were noted during the tests: a) The processes of vibrations of the bars has a periodic, sinusoidal-type character; the frequencies of vibrations are close to the natural frequencies of bars of forms I, II, and III; b) intensified bar vibrations ~ere noted at practically all flow velocities regardless of the angle of attack of the water on the bar; c) bar vibrations had a quite unstable character; sudden transitions from some vibration parameters to others (amplitude, frequency) occurred in the same regimes; c) pressure fluctuations on the surface of the bars in certain regimes had a periodic component (more or less considerable) at the bar vibration frequency against the background of a high-frequency random turbulent fluctuation; e) the regimes of considerable vibrations and the regimes of considerable pressure fluctuations at this same frequency did not always correspond to each other; for example, sometimes strong vibrations of the bar were accompanied by quite weak pressure fluctuations; sometimes strong pressure fluctuations were not combined with any appreciable vibrations. If the frequency of shedding of vortices is determined from the available literature data, then resonance could occur only at flow velocities considerably greater than the actual (Fig. 2). The characteristics of the investigated vibrations of the bars and pressure fluctuations on the bars together permitted the conclusion that the vibrations of the bars are self-excited vibrations in a system with several degrees of freedom and not the result of resonance of a dynamic system with an external disturbing force. The phenomenon of resonance, if it does occur in this case, is only an accompanying phenomenon. Full-scale tests of an unheated trash rack (Fig. ib) confirmed this result. vibrations of the bars were noted at an average flow velocity v = 0o5 m/sec. The strongest

Laboratory investigations also confirmed the presence of flutter. However, as was noted earlier, intensified vibrations of bars occur at low velocities, whereas in practice breakage of the bars most often occurs on racks operating at high flow velocities. The explanation of

425

this fact apparently consists in that breakage of the bars is related not so much to the value of the average velocity on the approach to the rack as to the drop, which determines the velocity between the bars and the forces acting on the bars in the direction across the flow. The form of the bars, as a rule, is selected as elongated, streamlined; for unheated bars the ratio of the length to the width is usually taken as b/6 = I0 and for heated b/~ = 5-6

(Fig. 1).
A static calculation is usually used to check the frontal (with respect to the flow) strength of the bars under the distributed load created by the drop of the water level on the rack AH = 2.0 m when the sill is submerged up to 20 m beneath the water level and AH = 3.0 m when submerged more than 20 m. It is considered that the angles of attack of the flow on the bars are quite small, and therefore we need not fret about the transverse forces and, consequently, transverse strength of the bars. HoweVer, the acceptance of the flutter hypothesis of vibrations to approach the problem of the transverse force more correctly. The equation of vibrations in the following form [i]: of the bars in the direction across of the bars compels us the flow can be written

~--~1

K,,, (s~.)~+E*J Ox' +~mk-~-~--~ +Pm~-OK-=P(~' t),

(i)

where ~ is the linear mass of the bar; x is the coordinate or a point; y = y(x, t) is the displacement of points of the bar; K m are the stiffnesses of m kinematic couplings; E* is the reduced modulus of elasticity of the bar material [2]; 0 is the density of water; m k and m4 are functions of the coordinates, which depend on the interaction of the forms of deformations of the bar, boundary conditions, and distribution of the mean fluid flow velocities, determining the so-called apparent additional masses and apparent additional friction; P(x, t) is the force acting on the bar, which depends on the flow velocity and angle of attack of water on the bar. The solution of flutter problems requires a very exact assignment of the quantities figuring in Eq. (i): forces, stiffnesses of the couplings, and apparent additional masses and friction. But first of all it is necessary to determine all possible forms of deformation of the rack bars interacting with one another. In particular, the value of the force figuring in the right side of Eq. (i) depends on the kinematic angle of attack and varies together with it during each period of vibration and, moreover, differently for each coordinate of the bar. The stiffnesses of the couplings Km, varying little during vibrations, themselves determine the possible forms of deformations of the bars and therefore also should be assigned sufficiently accurately. An experimental and calculated determination of all these factors influencing the modes and parameters of vibrations constitutes the content of the works being carried out now in the hydrodynamics laboratory of Mosgidrostal'. The operating conditions and value of the linear load normalized as a function of the angle of attack are shown in Fig. 3. by the velocity head

Prototype and model investigations of the angles of attack on the rack bars in several layouts of the intakes showed that these angles are in the interval 0-35 ~ . As for the velocity of the flow past them, its depends on the drop on the rack, i.e., on the resistance of the entire rack structure, and can be quite considerable (up to 8 m/sec) in the case of reaching the design drop on the rack. Of course the design drop can be obtained only on a clogged rack, but certain bars in this case can remain outside the zone of clogging and can be passed by a flow with a high velocity and at considerable angles. The profile of the bar of the unheated rack has a very small resistance at a zero angle of attack (Fig. 4). When the angle of attack deviates from 0 ~ the values of the resistance coefficients increase rather sharply. For comparison, Fig. 4 shows additionally two curves of the resistance coefficients for shorter bars. The resistance of these bars when ~ = 0 is considerably greater, but the curves of ~ as a function of ~ slope more gently. At a certain angle ~ = i0-15 ~ these curves intersect and at larger angles the shorter bars have smaller resistances.

426

gqO
@b,,~ o~50 o, zo
I r ~cc~

b.

10

20

ZO

4~0

50 c~~

10 15 20 ; 5 ~ ~

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

Fig. 3. Hydrodynamic coefficients of the bars: i) Heated bar (Fig. la); 2) unheated bar (Fig. Ib); Cy = p/(pv=/2) is the hydrodynamic lift coefficient. Fig. 4. Hydraulic resistance coefficients: I) Unheated bar (Fig. ib);b/6 = I0); 2 ) ~ b / 6 = 5 [3]; 3) =b/6 = 5 [3]. This example and the fact that under actual conditions the stream flows past the rack at an angle show that the selection of the form of the bar on the basis of minimum resistance in the case of a frontal flow past them is insufficiently substantiated. It appears that the average "equivalent" angle of attack depends on the distribution of the real angles of attack over the width of the rack and on the form of the bars. We can proceed in the following way: We can divide the span of the rack into several equal sections with approximately the same angles of attack of the flow on the bars, and on the basis of the curve of ~ = f(a) for the given form of the profile we can determine the resistance coefficient of the bars for each section and then the average resistance coefficient of the rack bars; this coefficient with the use of the same curve of ~ = f(~) gives the average angle of attack with respect to resistance. This angle is smaller, the flatter the curve of ~ = f(~). For each bar its own value of the average angle and resistance coefficient is obtained; these values of resistances should he compared among themselves. However, the final selection of the form of the bar should be made with consideration of the value of the transverse forces acting on the bar during flow past it and determining both the static and dynamic strength. In this case, for calculating the static strength the load should be taken with respect to the maximum of all possible angles of attack and maximum flow velocity, and for calculating the dynamic strength all possible combinations of angles of attack and velocities should be exmained. As already mentioned, for a dynamic calculation of the bars it is essential to have a clear idea about the possible modes of vibrations and their interactions. If for heated rods with induction heating flexural and torsional modes are possible mutually influencing modes of vibrations, then for unheated bars only flexural vibrations (as a consequence of the presence of free tie rods) are possible with respect to several different modes of the first tones depending on the number of such tie rods (1-3). Furthermore, torsional and translational modes of vibrations are possible. Of the flexural modes the most dangerous (with maximum amplitudes), as full-scale tests showed, was the mode of vibration as a "large" span between fastened tie rods. These vibrations occurs at a low flow velocity (0.5 m/sec) and therefore they cannot be avoided if they are possible with respect to the kinematic couplings. Such vibrations can be eliminated only if the free tie rods are secured against lateral movement. An analysis of the investigations of the behavior of rack bars conducted at Mosgidrostal' and VNIIG gives grounds for issuing right now the following practical recommendations aimed at improving the static and dynamic behavior and selection of the designs of racks: 1. Elimination of the possibility of movement of the tie rods of unheated racks in the plane of the rack by installing lateral stops. This will eliminate the most dangerous flexural vibrations of the bars across the flow.

427

2. Reduction of the stiffness of fastening the sections of the rack bars on the loadbearing structure to increase damping of vibrations. For this purpose it is suggested to limit the total length of the bars to 3-3.5 m and to introduce elastic elements into the design of the fastening assemblies and lateral stops. 3. Performance of static and dynamic calculations of the bars for a transverse load. The load should be taken with consideration of the real angles of attack of the water on the bars and water velocity at the design drop~ 4. The use of connection of the bars to the tie rods with minimum stress concentration.

5. To reduce the lateral hydrodynamic forces it is expedient to change the form of the bars with reduction of the ratios of the length to the thickness and equalization of the pressure on the pressure and free-flow sides. A successful form in this respect is a combination of two 30-mm-diameter cylindrical bars with a distance between them equal to the diameter of the tie rod and fastened together by braces every 250-300 mm. The connection of such bars with the tie rods is technologically effective and substantially reduces stress concentration. Such a bar, naturally, is very insensitive to a change in the angles of attack, especially at angles greater than 3-5 ~ . The use of deformed rods in such a bar will make it possible to avoid the danger of organized shedding of vortices over the length of the bar. LITERATURE CITED i. L. A. Kuznetsov, V. S. Klenonv, and P. Eo Lysenko, Problems of Hydrodynamic Calculation of High-Head Gate Chambers in Emergency Regimes. VNIIG, Additional Data [in Russian], Energiya, Leningrad (1975). E. S. Sorokin, Theory of Internal Friction in Vibrations of Elastic Systems [in Russian], Stroiizdat, Moscow (1960). J. Spandler, Undersuchungen uber den Verlust an Rechen beischr~ger Zustr~mung. Mitteilung e n d e r Hydraulischen Instituts der Technischen Hoschschule, M~nchen, Heft 2 (1928).

2. 3.

428