Experimental Study of Two-Phase Flow-Induced Vibrations in Pipelines Under Varying Flow and Burial Conditions

Abstract The complex nature of two-phase flow increases the difficulty of safety monitoring systems in real-world pipelines. Two-phase flow-induced vibration (FIV), when used as a nonintrusive signal for a novel pipeline structural health monitoring (SHM) technique, requires signal analysis procedures and an experimental database. This paper experimentally characterizes two-phase FIV in pipelines across numerous scenarios, including varying flow conditions and in the presence of soil. The experiment measures structural vibration using tri-axial accelerometers mounted at the top of a pipe. Pipe vibration characteristics are analyzed in both the frequency and time domains. Flow conditions are quantified in terms of various two-phase flow factors, including flow pattern, flow pressure, and dimensionless numbers. Damping effects due to varying soil conditions, including unburied, semiburied, and fully buried, are examined.