Paramètres pour l'instabilité fluidélastique: Dérivées de stabilité et amortissement diphasiqu

Heat exchangers and steam generators are crucial components in nuclear power plants. Water heated by nuclear fission is flowing through thousands of tubes inside a steam generator. Heat is transmitted to a second water network, external to the tubes. Steam is generated from the water of the secondary to power the turbines that produce electrical power. In this process, two-phase cross flow across the tubes causes several excitation phenomena. Vibration induced on the tubes can compromise the structural integrity of the steam generator, and can lead to power plant shutdowns. Better understanding of parameters at stake would lead to improved power plant safety and reliability.;Fluidelastic instability is without doubt one of the most destructive vibration phenomena. It causes the steam generator tubes to collide against one another. This can lead to premature wear on the tubes, cracks due to fatigue and eventually, leaks leading to radioactive water contamination. Therefore, predicting conditions leading to fluidelastic instability would allow to control the damage on the tubes. In this thesis, we aim at identifying the key parameters to predict fluidelastic instability. To do so, a theoretical approach is based on the quasi-steady model. It is shown that the equation used to predict fluidelastic instability comprises two parameters that are hard to characterize. There is, on one hand, the derivative of the lift coefficient on a cylinder, and damping on the other hand. The main objective of this project is to measure these parameters experimentally.;Knowing that the sign of the lift coefficient derivative is a sufficient indicator of fluidelastic instability, this derivative was measured. The experiments were carried out on the center tube of an array. The flow is single-phase and values of Reynolds number are low to moderate, thus filling a gap in the literature. Indeed, the lift coefficient derivative is known for high values of the Reynolds number only. Meanwhile, numerical methods are developed. They are based on the direct resolution of Navier-Stokes equations with the finite-element method, and on potential flow theory. Results for the lift coefficient derivative are compared to the measurements. Furthermore, the influence of geometric parameters of the array are investigated.;The trend in the results show that the derivative of the lift coefficient becomes Reynolds independent for high values. From the literature and the measurements, a relationship is proposed for the lift coefficient derivative with respect to the Reynolds number. Values are injected in the quasi-steady model to predict the critical velocity for the onset of instability of a single flexible tube. Stability maps for various Reynolds numbers are proposed, using typical values for the tube damping. However, the maps do not compare well with critical velocities found in the literature for high values of the Reynolds number. Stability tests would be necessary to confirm the validity of the maps for low Reynolds, as fluidelastic has never been investigated in this range of Reynolds number. Yet, for high values of the Reynolds number, it seems like the quasi-steady model fails to predict the behavior of the experiments.;An accurate value for the total damping of a tube is required to locate instability results on a map. However, in steam generators subjected to two-phase flow, damping on a tube is much more important than for single-phase flow. Yet, its origin is unknown. Therefore, we measured two-phase damping for internal flow using a specific test section. Indeed, a few studies on two-phase flow suggest that the damping mechanism is the same for a tube in cross-flow and for a tube subjected to internal flow. The present study focuses on the physics underlying the two-phase damping mechanism.;The test bench consists of a sliding rigid tube subjected to upward internal two-phase flow. It essentially is a mass-spring system subjected to a transverse sinusoidal force. The damping is extracted from the frequency response function of the tube. Meanwhile, gas phase motion is characterized through video processing of the oscillating tube. The relative amplitude of the gas phase is related to two-phase flow damping values via a model of the forces acting on the bubbles.;Varying excitation parameters such as frequency and excitation force confirms that two-phase damping is a viscous (velocity dependent) dissipation mechanism. Its direct relation with flow pattern transitions was confirmed. Furthermore, the combination of the videos and the analytical model suggests that the power dissipated by the drag force on the bubbles is significant in the two-phase damping mechanism. However, the model over-predicts the amplitude of the gas phase. This suggests that pseudo-turbulence generated by the motion of the tube is to be considered.;The results of this study form an experimental database that can be used as input for fluidelastic instability models. Particularly, two-phase flow experiments will eventually help validating numerical methods, regarding the damping as well as the behavior of the gas phase. This work contributes to modeling and understanding two-phase flow induced vibration.