Mitigation of flow-induced vibrations in high-speed flows using triply periodic minimal surface structures

Flow-induced vibrations (FIVs) pose challenges and limit intended functionalities in many industrial sectors, especially in high-tech industries such as semiconductor manufacturing. Because of extreme precision requirements, any mechanical perturbation to the manufacturing process detrimentally affects production quality and process yield. The impact of FIV must, thus, be minimized. This study investigates the FIV reducing properties of triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) inserts in industrial cooling systems by expanding the Darcy–Forchheimer model for flow through porous media to a turbulent regime. Using the expanded model, we performed full-scale finite-element simulations for high-speed flows in a pipe with an abrupt expansion of diameter and analyzed the effects of TPMS inserts on the reduction of induced turbulence and FIV. Our data revealed that the TPMS inserts exhibit promising characteristics for FIV mitigation revealing up to 97.6% reduction in turbulent kinetic energy and 32.7% reduction in vorticity. These results complement available data on using TPMS inserts to eliminate geometry-induced instabilities in internal pipe flows.