Experimental Study of Fluid Structure Interaction Effects on Metal Plates Under Fully Developed Laminar Flow

The development of a reference test case with repeatable and accurate results is of paramount importance for the validation of numerical Fluid Structure Interaction FSI models and simulations. In this study, a new experimental facility was designed and constructed for the investigation of FSI between fully developed laminar flow and test section plate in an enclosed flow channel. Computational Fluid Dynamics CFD software was used to model laminar flow in a shallow rectangular duct to determine proper dimensions of the experimental apparatus. The FSI problem was then modeled in CFD using the predetermined dimensions. The experimental set up included construction of the duct, creation of a closed flow circuit and its instrumentation. The metal test plate was fitted with gages to gather real-time information on the strain levels during the experiment. Subsequently, the experiment was performed and the results were compared with the FSI modeling.