Numerical Wave Tank: Simulation of Extreme Waves for the Investigation of Structural Responses

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gu¨nther F. Clauss ◽  
Christian E. Schmittner ◽  
Robert Stu¨ck
Keyword(s):  
Free Surface ◽  
Potential Theory ◽  
Stokes Equations ◽  
Wave Train ◽  
Breaking Waves ◽  
Vof Method ◽  
Time Step ◽  
Wave Tank ◽  
Element Discretization ◽  
Numerical Wave

For the deterministic analysis of extreme structure behavior, the hydrodynamics of the exciting wave field, i. e. pressure and velocity fields, must be known. Whereas responses of structures, e. g. motions, can easily be obtained by model tests, the detailed characteristics of the exciting waves are often difficult to determine by measurements. Therefore, numerical wave tanks (NWT) promise to be a handy tool for providing detailed insight into wave hydrodynamics. In this paper different approaches for numerical wave tanks are introduced and used for the simulation of rogue wave sequences. The numerical wave tanks presented are characterized by the following key features: a) Potential theory with Finite Element discretization (Pot/FE); b) Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes Equations (RANSE) using the Volume of Fluid (VOF) method for describing the free surface. For the NWT using the VOF method three different commercial RANSE codes (CFX, FLUENT, COMET) are applied to calculate wave propagation, whereas simulations based on potential theory are carried out with a wave simulation code developed at Technical University Berlin (WAVETUB). It is shown that the potential theory method allows a fast and accurate simulation of the propagation of nonbreaking waves. In contrast, the RANSE/VOF method allows the calculation of breaking waves but is much more time-consuming, and effects of numerical diffusion can not be neglected. To benefit from the advantages of both solvers, i. e. the calculation speed (Pot/FE-solver WAVETUB) and the capability of simulating breaking waves (RANSE/VOF-solver), the coupling of both simulation methods is introduced. Two different methods of coupling are presented: a) at a given position in the wave tank; b) at a given time step. WAVETUB is used to simulate the propagation of the wave train from the start towards the coupling position (case A) or until wave breaking is encountered (case B). Subsequently, the velocity field and the contour of the free surface is handed over as boundary (case A) or initial values (case B) to the RANSE/VOF-solver and the simulation process is continued. To validate these approaches, different types of model seas for investigating wave/structure interactions are generated in a physical wave tank and compared to the numerical simulations.

Numerical Investigation of Focused Waves and Their Interaction With a Vertical Cylinder Using REEF3D

2017 ◽  
Vol 139 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Bihs ◽  
Mayilvahanan Alagan Chella ◽  
Arun Kamath ◽  
Øivind Asgeir Arntsen
Keyword(s):  
Free Surface ◽  
Stokes Equations ◽  
Free Surface Flows ◽  
Surface Elevation ◽  
Numerical Wave Tank ◽  
Free Surface Elevation ◽  
Wave Tank ◽  
Numerical Wave ◽  
Focused Wave ◽  
The Impact

For the stability of offshore structures, such as offshore wind foundations, extreme wave conditions need to be taken into account. Waves from extreme events are critical from the design perspective. In a numerical wave tank, extreme waves can be modeled using focused waves. Here, linear waves are generated from a wave spectrum. The wave crests of the generated waves coincide at a preselected location and time. Focused wave generation is implemented in the numerical wave tank module of REEF3D, which has been extensively and successfully tested for various wave hydrodynamics and wave–structure interaction problems in particular and for free surface flows in general. The open-source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code REEF3D solves the three-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations on a staggered Cartesian grid. Higher order numerical schemes are used for time and spatial discretization. For the interface capturing, the level set method is selected. In order to test the generated waves, the time series of the free surface elevation are compared with experimental benchmark cases. The numerically simulated free surface elevation shows good agreement with experimental data. In further computations, the impact of the focused waves on a vertical circular cylinder is investigated. A breaking focused wave is simulated and the associated kinematics is investigated. Free surface flow features during the interaction of nonbreaking focused waves with a cylinder and during the breaking process of a focused wave are also investigated along with the numerically captured free surface.

Analysis of Wave Interaction With Cylinders Using a 3D Numerical Wave Tank

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arun Kamath ◽  
Hans Bihs ◽  
Øivind A. Arntsen
Keyword(s):  
Free Surface ◽  
Numerical Model ◽  
Flow Field ◽  
Stokes Equations ◽  
Total Force ◽  
Numerical Wave Tank ◽  
Offshore Structure ◽  
Wave Tank ◽  
Computational Performance ◽  
Numerical Wave

Evaluation of flow around a cylinder placed in waves is a challenging task due to the complex nature of the flow. A good understanding of the flow physics involved here is important as coastal and offshore structures consist of horizontal and vertical cylindrical elements. This paper explores the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to evaluate the flow field around cylindrical structures. A 3D numerical wave tank is employed to study the free surface and fluid velocities around a vertical cylinder placed in waves and the total force acting on the cylinder is evaluated. The numerical results are compared with experimental data. Further, a simple representation of an offshore structure modelled as multiple cylinders in proximity is also simulated in the numerical wave tank. The presence of neighbouring cylinders has an effect on the flow field. This affects the force acting on each of the cylinders in the group. The forces acting on every cylinder in the group are evaluated and the free surface elevation in the flow field is also visualised. The numerical result is compared with the result from an analytical formula. The numerical model uses the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations to evaluate the flow field. The convective terms are discretized using a 5th-order conservative finite difference WENO scheme. Time discretization is carried out using a 3rd-order Runge-Kutta scheme. Pressure discretization is carried out using Chorin’s projection method. The Poisson pressure equation is solved using a pre-conditioned BiCGStab algorithm. A sharp representation of the free surface is obtained using the level set method. Turbulence modeling is carried out using the k-ω model. Computational performance of the numerical model is improved by parallel processing using the MPI library.

NUMERICAL SOLUTIONS OF 2D AND 3D SLAMMING PROBLEMS

2021 ◽  
Vol 153 (A2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Q Yang ◽  
W Qiu
Keyword(s):  
Free Surface ◽  
Numerical Solutions ◽  
Stokes Equations ◽  
Type Equation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Navier Stokes ◽  
Time Step ◽  
Navier Stokes Equations ◽  
Highly Nonlinear ◽  
2D And 3D

Slamming forces on 2D and 3D bodies have been computed based on a CIP method. The highly nonlinear water entry problem governed by the Navier-Stokes equations was solved by a CIP based finite difference method on a fixed Cartesian grid. In the computation, a compact upwind scheme was employed for the advection calculations and a pressure-based algorithm was applied to treat the multiple phases. The free surface and the body boundaries were captured using density functions. For the pressure calculation, a Poisson-type equation was solved at each time step by the conjugate gradient iterative method. Validation studies were carried out for 2D wedges with various deadrise angles ranging from 0 to 60 degrees at constant vertical velocity. In the cases of wedges with small deadrise angles, the compressibility of air between the bottom of the wedge and the free surface was modelled. Studies were also extended to 3D bodies, such as a sphere, a cylinder and a catamaran, entering calm water. Computed pressures, free surface elevations and hydrodynamic forces were compared with experimental data and the numerical solutions by other methods.

Focused Plunging Breaking Waves Impact on Cylinder Group in Deep Water

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ting Cui ◽  
Arun Kamath ◽  
Weizhi Wang ◽  
Lihao Yuan ◽  
Duanfeng Han ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Free Surface ◽  
Deep Water ◽  
Breaking Waves ◽  
Surface Elevation ◽  
Relative Distance ◽  
Structural Safety ◽  
Wave Forces ◽  
Free Surface Elevation ◽  
Single Cylinder ◽  
Numerical Wave

Abstract The correct estimation of wave loading on a cylinder in a cylinder group under different impact scenarios is essential to determine the structural safety of coastal and offshore structures. This scenario differs from the interaction of waves with a single cylinder but not a lot of studies focus on cylinder groups under different arrangements. In this study, the interaction between plunging breaking waves and cylinder groups in deep water is investigated using the two-phase flow model in REEF3D, an open-source computational fluid dynamics program. The Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equation with the two equation k–Ω turbulence model is adopted to resolve the numerical wave tank, with free surface calculated using the level set method. In this study, focused waves in deep water were modeled with a fixed wave steepness method. Wave breaking occurs when the steepness of the wave crest front satisfies the breaking criteria. The model is validated by comparing the numerical wave forces and free surface elevation with measurements from experiments. The computational results show fairly good agreement with experimental data for both free surface elevation and wave forces. Four cases are simulated to investigate the interaction of breaking waves with a cylinder group with different relative distance, number of cylinders and arrangement. Results show that breaking wave forces on the upstream cylinder are smaller than on a single cylinder with a relative distance of one cylinder diameter. The wave forces on cylinders in the pile group are effected by the relative distance between cylinders. The staggered arrangement has a significant influence on the wave forces on the first and second cylinder. The interaction inside a cylinder group mostly happens between the neighbouring cylinders. These interactions are also effected by the relative distance and the numbers of the neighbouring cylinders.

Numerical Simulation of Nonlinear Water Wave Propagation Over Rippled Bed

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerasimos A. Kolokythas ◽  
Athanassios A. Dimas
Keyword(s):  
Free Surface ◽  
Boundary Conditions ◽  
Water Waves ◽  
Stokes Equations ◽  
Surface Flow ◽  
Surface Boundary ◽  
Computational Domain ◽  
Time Step ◽  
Outflow Boundary ◽  
Rippled Bed

In the present study, numerical simulations of the free-surface flow, developing by the propagation of nonlinear water waves over a rippled bottom, are performed assuming that the corresponding flow is two-dimensional, incompressible and viscous. The simulations are based on the numerical solution of the Navier-Stokes equations subject to the fully-nonlinear free-surface boundary conditions and the suitable bottom, inflow and outflow boundary conditions. The equations are properly transformed so that the computational domain becomes time-independent. For the spatial discretization, a hybrid scheme with finite-differences and Chebyshev polynomials is applied, while a fractional time-step scheme is used for the temporal discretization. A wave absorption zone is placed at the outflow region in order to efficiently minimize reflection of waves by the outflow boundary. The numerical model is validated by comparison to the analytical solution for the laminar, oscillatory, current flow which develops a uniform boundary layer over a horizontal bottom. For the propagation of finite-amplitude waves over a rigid rippled bed, the case with wavelength to water depth ratio λ/d0 = 6 and wave height to wavelength ratio H0/λ = 0.05 is considered. The ripples have parabolic shape, while their dimensions — length and height — are chosen accordingly to fit laboratory and field data. Results indicate that the wall shear stress over the ripples and the form drag forces on the ripples increase with increasing ripple height, while the corresponding friction force is insensitive to this increase. Therefore, the percentage of friction in the total drag force decreases with increasing ripple height.

Development of 3-Dimensional Fully Nonlinear Potential Flow Planar Wave Tank in Framework of OpenFOAM

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zaibin Lin ◽  
Ling Qian ◽  
Wei Bai ◽  
Zhihua Ma ◽  
Hao Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Free Surface ◽  
Potential Flow ◽  
Wave Structure ◽  
Wave Model ◽  
Numerical Wave Tank ◽  
Wave Tank ◽  
Fully Nonlinear ◽  
3 Dimensional ◽  
Nonlinear Potential ◽  
Numerical Wave

Abstract A 3-Dimensional numerical wave tank based on the fully nonlinear potential flow theory has been developed in OpenFOAM, where the Laplace equation of velocity potential is discretized by Finite Volume Method. The water surface is tracked by the semi-Eulerian-Lagrangian method, where water particles on the free surface are allowed to move vertically only. The incident wave is generated by specifying velocity profiles at inlet boundary with a ramp function at the beginning of simulation to prevent initial transient disturbance. Additionally, an artificial damping zone is located at the end of wave tank to sufficiently absorb the outgoing waves before reaching downstream boundary. A five-point smoothing technique is applied at the free surface to eliminate the saw-tooth instability. The proposed wave model is validated against theoretical results and experimental data. The developed solver could be coupled with multiphase Navier-Stokes solvers in OpenFOAM in the future to establish an integrated versatile numerical wave tank for studying efficiently wave structure interaction problems.

Numerical Simulation of Solitary Wave Using the Fully Lagrangian Method of Moving Particle Semi Implicit

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Amin Nabian ◽  
Leila Farhadi
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Simulation ◽  
Free Surface ◽  
Solitary Wave ◽  
Stokes Equations ◽  
Rock Avalanche ◽  
Water Tank ◽  
Step Method ◽  
Fractional Step Method ◽  
Time Step ◽  
Moving Particle

A mesh-less numerical approach, called the moving particle semi implicit method (MPS), is presented to solve inviscid Navier-Stokes equations in a fully Lagrangian form using a fractional step method. This method consists of splitting each time step in two steps. The fluid is represented with particles and the motion of each particle is calculated through interactions with neighboring particles by means of a kernel function. In this paper, the MPS method is used to simulate a dynamic system consisting of a heavy box sinking vertically into a water tank, known as Scott Russell’s wave generator problem. This problem is an example of a falling rock avalanche into natural or artificial reservoirs. The box sinks into water tank and as a result the water is heaved up to form a solitary wave and a reverse plunging wave which forms a vortex. This vortex follows the solitary wave down the water tank. The good agreement between the numerical simulation and the analytical solution confirms the accuracy of the model. This proves the applicability of the present model in simulating complex free surface problems. The number of particles on free surface is presented as an indicator of stability of the model.

Numerical Simulation of Transient Free Surface Flows Using a Moving Mesh Technique

2006 ◽  
Vol 73 (6) ◽  
pp. 1017-1025 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Battaglia ◽  
Jorge D’Elía ◽  
Mario Storti ◽  
Norberto Nigro
Keyword(s):  
Finite Element ◽  
Free Surface ◽  
Incompressible Flow ◽  
Stokes Equations ◽  
Free Surface Flows ◽  
Navier Stokes ◽  
Time Step ◽  
Surface Flows ◽  
Flow Domain ◽  
Convection Dominated

In this work, transient free surface flows of a viscous incompressible fluid are numerically solved through parallel computation. Transient free surface flows are boundary-value problems of the moving type that involve geometrical nonlinearities. In contrast to more conventional computational fluid dynamics problems, the computational flow domain is partially bounded by a free surface which is not known a priori, since its shape must be computed as part of the solution. In steady flow the free surface is obtained by an iterative process, but when the free surface evolves with time the problem is more difficult as it generates large distortions in the computational flow domain. The incompressible Navier-Stokes numerical solver is based on the finite element method with equal order elements for pressure and velocity (linear elements), and it uses a streamline upwind/Petrov-Galerkin (SUPG) scheme (Hughes, T. J. R., and Brooks, A. N., 1979, “A Multidimensional Upwind Scheme With no Crosswind Diffusion,” in Finite Element Methods for Convection Dominated Flows, ASME ed., 34. AMD, New York, pp. 19–35, and Brooks, A. N., and Hughes, T. J. R., 1982, “Streamline Upwind/Petrov-Galerkin Formulations for Convection Dominated Flows With Particular Emphasis on the Incompressible Navier-Stokes Equations,” Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Eng., 32, pp. 199–259) combined with a Pressure-Stabilizing/Petrov-Galerkin (PSPG) one (Tezduyar, T. E., 1992, “Stablized Finite Element Formulations for Incompressible Flow Computations,” Adv. Appl. Mech., 28, pp. 1–44, and Tezduyar, T. E., Mittal, S., Ray, S. E., and Shih, R., 1992, “Incompressible Flow Computations With Stabilized Bilinear and Linear Equal Order Interpolation Velocity-Pressure Elements,” Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Eng., 95, pp. 221–242). At each time step, the fluid equations are solved with constant pressure and null viscous traction conditions at the free surface and the velocities obtained in this way are used for updating the positions of the surface nodes. Then, a pseudo elastic problem is solved in the fluid domain in order to relocate the interior nodes so as to keep mesh distortion controlled. This has been implemented in the PETSc-FEM code (PETSc-FEM: a general purpose, parallel, multi-physics FEM program. GNU general public license (GPL), http://www.cimec.org.ar/petscfem) by running two parallel instances of the code and exchanging information between them. Some numerical examples are presented.

scholarly journals Generation of Offshore Environments in the Numerical Wave Tank to Model Metocean Conditions Interaction with Offshore Structure Near the Free Surface

2021 ◽  
Vol 945 (1) ◽  
pp. 012018
Author(s):  
Mushtaq Ahmed ◽  
Zafarullah Nizamani ◽  
Akihiko Nakayama ◽  
Montasir Osman
Keyword(s):  
Free Surface ◽  
Offshore Structures ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Wave Crest ◽  
Extreme Conditions ◽  
Numerical Wave Tank ◽  
Offshore Structure ◽  
Wave Tank ◽  
Numerical Wave ◽  
Operating Wave

Abstract Offshore structures play a vital role in the economy of offshore oil-producing countries, where mostly fixed jacket type structures are used to produce oil and gas installed in shallow water. In an offshore environment where structures are installed, there exist met ocean forces such as wind, waves, and currents. These met ocean conditions when interacting with offshore structures near the free surface, generate loads. The estimation of such loads is very much important for the proper design of these structures. The primary aim of this study is to investigate the interaction of waves with a jacket platform by generating offshore environments in the numerical wave tank (NWT). To achieve this goal, ANSYS Fluent is used for the flow analysis by using continuity and Navier Stokes equation. Results are verified and validated with the analytical work. Wave crests under operating condition generate a force of 1.3 MN which is the lowest in magnitude as compared to wave crest which produces 4.5 MN force under extreme conditions. Unlike operating wave crest, the operating wave trough generates a higher force of 1 MN than extreme conditions which account for 1.5 MN forces. Forces produced by the extreme offshore environment are 30% higher than those generated under operating conditions. It is concluded from the results that a positive force is exerted onto the structure during the water entry phase while a negative force is observed when the water leaves the structure.

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