Vortex shedding

A thrill ride, "VertiGo" at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio

suered vortex shedding during the winter of 2001, causing one of the three towers to collapse. The ride was
closed for the winter at the time.[2]

1 Governing equation
The frequency at which vortex shedding takes place for a
cylinder is related to the Strouhal number by the following
equation:

Vortex shedding behind a circular cylinder. In this animation, the

ow on the two sides of the cylinder are shown in dierent colors,
to show that the vortices from the two sides alternate. Courtesy,
Cesareo de La Rosa Siqueira.

St =

fD
V

Where St is the Strouhal number, f is the vortex shedding

frequency, D is the diameter of the cylinder, and V is the
ow velocity.

In uid dynamics, vortex shedding is an oscillating ow

that takes place when a uid such as air or water ows past
a blu (as opposed to streamlined) body at certain velocities, depending on the size and shape of the body. In this
ow, vortices are created at the back of the body and detach periodically from either side of the body. See Von
Krmn vortex street. The uid ow past the object creates alternating low-pressure vortices on the downstream
side of the object. The object will tend to move toward
the low-pressure zone.

The Strouhal number depends on the body shape and on

the Reynolds number.

2 Mitigation of vortex shedding effects

If the blu structure is not mounted rigidly and the

frequency of vortex shedding matches the resonance
frequency of the structure, the structure can begin to
resonate, vibrating with harmonic oscillations driven by
the energy of the ow. This vibration is the cause of
the singing of overhead power line wires in a wind, and
the uttering of automobile whip radio antennas at some
speeds. Tall chimneys constructed of thin-walled steel
tube can be suciently exible that, in air ow with a
speed in the critical range, vortex shedding can drive the
chimney into violent oscillations that can damage or destroy the chimney. These chimneys can be protected from
this phenomenon by installing a series of fences (sometimes called strakes or spoilers) at the top and running
down the exterior of the chimney for approximately 20%
of its length. The fences are usually located in a helical
pattern. The fences prevent strong vortex shedding with
low separation frequencies. The optimal pitch for vortex
shedding is a 5D pitch (5 x the diameter of the stack).

Modern tall smokestacks usually have a corkscrew n (a

strake) to deliberately introduce turbulence, so that the
load is less variable and resonant load frequencies have
negligible amplitudes.[3]
A Stockbridge damper is used to mitigate aeolian vibrations caused by vortex shedding on overhead power lines.

3 See also
Aeroelastic Flutter - vibration-induced vortices - by
way of contrast
Vortex
Vortex-induced vibration
Von Krmn vortex street

Vortex shedding was one of the causes proposed for the

failure of the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge (Galloping
Gertie) in 1940, but was rejected because the frequency
of the vortex shedding did not match that of the bridge.
The bridge actually failed by aeroelastic utter.[1]

4 References
[1] K. Billah and R. Scanlan (1991), Resonance, Tacoma
Narrows Bridge Failure, and Undergraduate Physics Text-

books, American Journal of Physics, 59(2), 118-124

(PDF)
[2] Maureen Byko (May 2002). Materials Give Roller
Coaster Enthusiasts a Reason to Scream. The Minerals,
Metals & Materials Society. Retrieved 2009-02-22.
[3] R. J. Brown. VIV Lecture (PDF).

External links
Failure of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge
A movie of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge failure
Flow visualisation of the vortex shedding mechanism on circular cylinder using hydrogen bubbles illuminated by a laser sheet in a water channel. Courtesy of G.R.S. Assi.

EXTERNAL LINKS

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

6.1

Text

Vortex shedding Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_shedding?oldid=641180204 Contributors: Roadrunner, Charles Matthews,

Warmfuzzygrrl, Selket, WhiteDragon, Linas, Tabletop, SDC, Ketiltrout, Rjwilmsi, E Wing, SmackBot, Lainagier, Diegotorquemada, Radagast83, Pwjb, Chetvorno, Jbusenitz, M karzarj, Stybn, Alphachimpbot, SmokeySteve, Okwestern, Brrk.3001, YewBowman, Bark4nai, Yintan, Dolphin51, ClueBot, D.bartran, Andyluty, Crowsnest, LHMike, XLinkBot, Arbitrarily0, PennySpender1983, Yobot, Val35, Gareth
Grith-Jones, Widr, Daniel engineer and Anonymous: 27

6.2

Images

File:Vortex-street-animation.gif Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Vortex-street-animation.gif License:

Copyrighted free use Contributors: http://www.mcef.ep.usp.br/staff/jmeneg/cesareo/vort2.gif Original artist: Cesareo de La Rosa Siqueira

6.3

Content license

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0