VIBRATION OF A VERTICAL TOWER By the Rayleigh-Ritz Method

VIBRATION ANALYSIS TOWER HAVING CONSTANT DIAMETER AND THICKNESS

Often we need to know the period of vibration of a tall tower for a number of reasons.
These reasons could include:

To determine the stability of a tower when excited to promote vibration

The effect of wind flow around the vessel
The effects of seismic (earthquake) disturbances
The effects on the support system, for example, skirt and foundation rings.
etc.

The Cantilever

In the case of a uniform cantilever, such as the one depicted below, an equation for the
first mode of vibration is fairly simple.

The formula for the first mode of vibration stated in a consistent set of units is:

In American textbooks, you will find a different equation. This is because Americans are
used to putting inches, feet, pounds force, pounds mass and hours and seconds all
mixed up in the same equation. We shall not follow this practice, because it causes
confusion.

For example, if we substitute these values into the above equation, we can compute the
period of vibration:

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C.E Freese Paper

In 1958, C.E. Freese wrote a paper entitled: Vibrations of a Vertical Pressure Vessel,
published in the Journal of Engineering for Industry. It was a ground breaking paper,
because it analysed the whether a tower is likely to be stable or unstable. For the first
time, the designer could estimate whether a vessel would be safely erected as a
freestanding structure.

In that paper a graph was produced for a given vessel as to whether the vessel is likely
to be stable or unstable. Based on the following ratio:

w*D/h and L/D

Where

h = Thickness of the vessel shell ft.

D = The diameter of the vessel in ft.
L = The length of the vessel ft.
w = The weight of the vessel lbf / ft.

Although Freese chose not to use consistent units (for example: kg and metres), the
graph is nevertheless a useful tool for this purpose. The graph looked like this:

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Looking at the graph, vessels falling below red the line are considered stable, and
vessels falling above the line are considered unstable. This proves to be a rough and
ready method of determining the likelihood of vibrations that are excessive, leading to
problems with the foundation, and connecting pipework.

Vortex Shedding

When a tower is subject to a wind load the tower tends to bend in the direction of the
wind. This is because the wind striking the vessel changes its kinetic energy. The
deflection can be computed1. As has been pointed out, the effect is in the direction of
the wind. However there is another effect.

As the wind passes around the vessel, little eddie currents are generated on either side
of the vessel as a result of the friction on the wind stream. These eddie currents
comprise wind rotation at the sides of the vessel. Because the wind locally speeds up,
the pressure drops (according to the Bernoulli equation). As the pressure drops, there is
a positive force on the vessel imposed on the vessel from the other side where the wind
may be in smooth (laminar) flow.

1
We shall deal with deflection a little later, but for the time being we do not consider the degree of
deflection.

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These eddies are formed on alternate sides on the vessel. The vessel as a
consequence is excited because of the energy imparted to it by the wind stream. If
these eddie formations are generated at the natural frequency of the tower, instability
could result.

We can use an analogy. Imagine a child on a swing. When we push the swing at just
the right moment, we need a very small force to gradually increase the amplitude, or the
degree of swing. The wind, if it pushes the tower at just the right moment, its amplitude
will increase.

The equation for the period of vortex shedding is:

The characteristic constant k is usually taken as 0.2, so the equation becomes:

In metric unit, this equation is the same, except you set the speed to m/s and the
diameter to m.

A flag on a flagpole is seen to flap from side to side. This because of the vortex eddies
around the flagpole. The rate of flap is governed in the main by the diameter of the pole,
and the wind speed, according to the above equation.

If the rate of introducing energy exceeds the rate at which the energy is dissipated, then
we get excessive vibrations. Let us put his in the form of an equation:

Energy in (from the wind) = Work done (vibration) + losses (to heat and friction)

Putting this equation another way we can say:

Energy in Work done = losses

What are these losses?

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Damping

These losses are cause by internal friction, sloshing of any contained liquid, and wind
resistance.

An un-damped cantilever vibrating freely does so as a sinusoidal wave (sine wave). If

we were to draw a graph of the amplitude against time, we would get a graph like this:

The vibration go will on forever. However because of friction losses, the amplitude
diminishes over time like this:

Notice that the sine wave is modified by the envelope of the exponential curves. The
equation of the sine wave becomes:

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Once we have the value for k we can estimate the rate at which the vibrations die away.

Decrement

If we construct a tower, and set up an experiment where we pull the tower to one side,
we can allow the tower to vibrate freely. The vibrations will diminish in accordance with
the equation set out above. We need to find the value k for the tower.

A way we can co this is to measure the swings as the vibration diminishes. Consider the
following graph of our tower:

Now for the first swing the amplitude is:

A
For the second swing, the amplitude is
x.A
For the third swing, the amplitude is
2
x .A
th
For the n swing, and amplitude is
(n-1).
x A

The decrement is defined as:

k = (1 x)

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If you then substitute the value into the equation:

You can see how the vibrations diminish.

A typical value for k is:

k = 0.01

Critical Wind Speed

The critical wind speed occurs when the period of frequency of the vortex shedding is
the same as the natural period of frequency of the vibration of the tower.

If the wind speed is such that it within range of the natural period of vibration, extra
precautions have to be taken. If this occurs at higher wind speeds, excessive vibration
may be the result.

Amplitude

When the vessel begins to vibrate under the action of the wind, we do not know the
amplitude. However from experience, we can estimate the amplitude, by rule of thumb2.

VIBRATION ANALYSIS TOWER HAVE DIFFERING DAMETERS AND THICNESSES

So far, we have considered the period of vibration of a uniform cantilever (tower) with the
same diameter and thickness for the entire length. However, in reality we have towers
on differing diameters for each shell section, and the thicknesses change as the
elevation increases. Consider a tower having the dimensions shown below:

2
We shall return to this subject later.

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The equation we had for the period of frequency is no longer valid. As you recall our
formula was:

The value for the mass assumes that the cantilever is uniform throughout its length.
What diameter, and what thickness do we use to compute the mass?

For a uniform cantilever (tower), the mass is:

and the second moment of area (moment of inertia) is given by

Substituting these values

into the equation for the period of vibration we get:

As can be clearly seen, we cannot determine which thickness, and which diameter to
use in the formula!

For your interest, we can further simplify the equation if we substitute the value for the
density and Young Modulus
:

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As can be seen from the above equation we only need the dimensions of the shell:

t = Thickness m
L = Length m
D = diameter m

However, thing as not so simple. In real life as mentioned, the diameters, lengths and
thicknesses are different as we go up the tower.

RAYLEIGH-RITZ METHOD OF DETERMINING THE PERIOD OF VIBRATION

Consider the beam under its own mass (not weight) bending:

The beam (Tower) is divided into 3 sections in our illustration. The deflections of the
end of each section is:

y1, y2 and y3

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The Rayleigh equation for the period is given by:

Where:

M = Mass of each section (not weight) Kg

y = The deflection of each section m
n = Number of sections

Now, our mission is to determine the deflections of each section from the neutral position
of the tower.

We have to consider the deflection of one section under the action its own mass from
the imposed loads on each section.

Consider section i as one of the sections:

Now the values

Fi+1 = Force from the sections above section i+1

Mi+1 = Moment from the sections above section i+1
Wi = Mass of section i
Fi = Resultant force at the base of section i
Mi = Resultant moment at base of section i

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 VIBRATION OF A VERTICAL TOWER By the Rayleigh-Ritz Method

Now, we need to know the rotation of the end of the beam, and the deflection of the
beam as shown below:

From beam theory, we can compute the deflection, and rotation of the end of the
section:

The subscript j is the section above, and the subscripr i is the section being
considered.

We can now construct our tower (beam):

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Notice how we buid up the sections one at a time.

1 2

1+ 2 3

4
1+ 2+ 3

Let us build up the deflection one section at a tme:

Looking carefully at the way the deflection is built up, we can se a pattern.

Remember:

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As the deflections are built up one segment at a time, we have a scheme for emplhying
a spreadsheet such as Excel or Lotus. But first we need to consider a tower to analyse.
We propose the one shown below:

The first thing we need to do is set the dimensions out on oure spread sheet: We have
set this up in MathCad so you can see the calculation as it progresses. Remememer
the method of obtaining the forces and moments are set out according to this diagram:

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We set out the dimensions, including Youngs Modulus and the Density of the steel:
Notice, we have included the units (m, kg and Pa). We have used a consistent set of

units such that Newtons second law is reduced to unity:

2
Force (Newtons) = Mass (kg) x Acceleration ( m / s )
2
1 Pascal (Pa) = 1 Newton (N) / 1 square metre ( m )

Next, we compute the masses of each section:

Looking at the above figure, we have to compute the forces (Fi) from the top down, as
we need the information from the section above to compute the resultant forces. We
proceed this way:

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Now we come the accumulated moments (Mi). Again, we have to work from the top to
the bottom, as we need the moments above to derive the moments below. Notice the
units for the moment. They as not N-m but in mass units N-kg:

Now, we are in a position to calculate the local rotations (i ). We build them one at a time:

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Continuing, we can now compute the local deflections for each section (yi):

We are not through yet, we have to calculate the accumulated. or actual deflections of the
sections (i)

We make an assumption to simplify the procedure. It is not quite right, as we need the
deflections of the centroids of each section, but we compensate by using the lengths to the ends
of the sections instead of the lengths to the centroids.

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You recall, to compute the period of vibration, we use the formula:

So, let us do the final calculation:

Special test example of the cantilever formula

We can test the method for a uniform cantilever. Suppose we have the following tower:

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If we use the numeric method of breaking the tower into 10 equal sections, we get the
following result:

T = 1.0303 s

which is fairly close.

Platforms Heads and other Masses

We normally have to consider other vibrating masses attached to the tower. These
include heads, platforms, piping and other various masses. In this case, we must simply
add the masses and their positions to the vessel cylindrical shell locations we would to it
like this:

Dia m Thk m Len m Mass kg Platform Total

mass kg Vibrating
Mass kg

1.2 0.015 4 1776 1776

1 0.012 3.5 1036 1036
0.8 0.01 3 592 100 692
0.65 0.006 3.2 308 308
0.6 0.006 4 355 355

We simply continue the calculation with the total mass instead of the mass for each
cylindrical section.

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