Numerical investigation and arrangement optimization on VIV response of marine towing cable with suppression device

Vortex-induced vibration will occur due to the vortex shedding around the marine towing cable during the towing movement, which will further affect the acquisition efficiency of the marine seismic exploration system. Suppression device is widely used to suppress the VIV response of the marine slenderness structures. In order to investigate the passive suppression mechanism on the marine towing cable, a numerical VIV model is proposed to predict the VIV response of marine towing cable with buoyancy modules. The steady-state and VIV characteristics of marine towing cable with different coverage, layout and slenderness ratio are studied firstly. The parameters have a nonlinear relationship with the VIV response of cable and excessive arrangement of buoyancy module will enlarge the vibration displacement. Where to install a limited number of suppression devices is a challenge for practical engineering. Genetic algorithm is introduced to solve the optimization problem of the suppression device arrangements in this paper. The suppression device arrangement of towing cable will evolve in the direction of decreasing cable VIV displacement until reaching the optimal arrangement. The proposed method is demonstrated by comparing with some typical working conditions. It turns out that the proposed method can perform the optimization design of the suppression device arrangement efficiently. The VIV displacement of cable can be reduced obviously through the optimization design.