Boundaries effects on the movements of a sphere immersed in a free surface flow

This work analyzes the influence of boundary conditions on the movements of a sphere immersed in a steady free surface flow. The sphere is free to move both in the transverse and streamwise directions and it is characterized by the values of the mass ratio m* equal to 1.34 and of the damping ratio equal to 0.004. In all the experiments the blockage coefficient is kept constant, while the sphere is located at different distances from the free surface and from the bottom wall of the channel. The movements of the sphere have been measured by means of the image analysis of a charge coupled device camera which provides the 2D (streamwise and transverse) displacements of the sphere with a temporal resolution of 0.02 s. The experimental data show a significant influence of the boundaries on the sphere movement and highlight a different behavior of the amplitude response between the three different experimental setups considered.