Calculation of Wave Forces on Cylindrical Piles Using a 3D Numerical Wave Tank

Author(s):  
Arun Kamath ◽  
Hans Bihs ◽  
Øivind A. Arntsen

Offshore constructions generally include a large number of vertical cylinders in the support structure. The calculation of wave forces on a vertical cylinder and hydrodynamic effects on it in the presence of neighbouring cylinders is of practical interest. In this paper, a 3D numerical model is used to calculate wave forces on bottom fixed cylindrical piles. Two cases are considered in this study: a single cylinder and a pair of tandem cylinders. A scenario with multiple cylindrical structures in close proximity introduces complex wave-structure interactions and would be of great interest to observe this in detail in a three-dimensional simulation. The wave force exerted on a cylindrical pile is numerically calculated by integrating the pressure and the wall shear stress around the surface of the cylinder. In the case of the single cylinder, the force calculated by the model is compared to the force predicted by the Morison formula and MacCamy-Fuchs theory. In the second case, the pair of cylinders is aligned in the direction of the incoming waves. The numerically calculated inline wave force on each cylinder is compared to the analytical solution for this setup and a good agreement is seen. The Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations are used as the governing equations for the fluid flow in the numerical model. The convective terms are discretized using a 5th-order conservative finite difference WENO scheme. A 3rd-order accurate TVD Range-Kutta scheme is used for time discretization. Chorin’s projection method is used to discretize the pressure. The Poisson equation for pressure is solved using a preconditioned BiCGStab algorithm. The level set method is used to obtain a sharp representation of the free water surface. Turbulence in the flow is simulated using the k-ω model. The numerical model is adapted to parallel processing using the MPI library to improve the computing performance of the code.

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 520
Author(s):  
Zhenyu Liu ◽  
Zhen Guo ◽  
Yuzhe Dou ◽  
Fanyu Zeng

Most offshore wind turbines are installed in shallow water and exposed to breaking waves. Previous numerical studies focusing on breaking wave forces generally ignored the seabed permeability. In this paper, a numerical model based on Volume-Averaged Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes equations (VARANS) is employed to reveal the process of a solitary wave interacting with a rigid pile over a permeable slope. Through applying the Forchheimer saturated drag equation, effects of seabed permeability on fluid motions are simulated. The reliability of the present model is verified by comparisons between experimentally obtained data and the numerical results. Further, 190 cases are simulated and the effects of different parameters on breaking wave forces on the pile are studied systematically. Results indicate that over a permeable seabed, the maximum breaking wave forces can occur not only when waves break just before the pile, but also when a “secondary wave wall” slams against the pile, after wave breaking. With the initial wave height increasing, breaking wave forces will increase, but the growth can decrease as the slope angle and permeability increase. For inclined piles around the wave breaking point, the maximum breaking wave force usually occurs with an inclination angle of α = −22.5° or 0°.


1973 ◽  
Vol 17 (02) ◽  
pp. 61-71
Author(s):  
H. S. Chen ◽  
C. C. Mei

Exciting forces and moments due to plane incident waves on a stationary platform are studied in this paper. The platform is a vertical cylinder with a finite draft and elliptical cross section. The mathematical solution to the diffraction problem is obtained on the basis of the linearized long wave approximation. Numerical results via Mathieu functions are presented for a shiplike body with beam-to-length ratio Various draft-to-depth ratios and angles of incidence are considered. Results have been checked with the limiting case of a circular cylinder for the long-wave length range. Aside from its own practical interest, the present theory provides a basis for comparison with other approximate theories of slender-body type and serves as a prelude to the corresponding calculations for arbitrary wavelengths.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-133
Author(s):  
Anoop I. Shirkol ◽  
Nasar Thuvanismail

Wave interaction with a floating thin elastic plate which can be used as floating platform is analyzed using Boundary Element Method (BEM) for different shapes such as rectangular, circular and triangular. Different support conditions are considered and the performance of the floating platform under the action of ocean waves is explored. The study is performed under the assumption of linearized water wave theory and the floating elastic plate is modelled based on the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. Using Galerkin’s approach, a numerical model has been developed and the hydrodynamic loading on the floating elastic plate of shallow draft (thickness) is investigated. The wave forces are generated by the numerical model for the analysis of the floating plate. The resulting bending moment and optimal deflection due to encountering wave force is analysed. The present study will be helpful in design and analysis of the large floating platform in ocean waves.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayilvahanan Alagan Chella ◽  
Hans Bihs ◽  
Arun Kamath ◽  
Dag Myrhaug ◽  
Øivind Asgeir Arnsten

The main purpose of the study is to investigate the breaking wave interaction with a group of four circular cylinders. The physical process of wave breaking involves many parameters and an accurate numerical modelling of breaking waves and the interaction with a structure remain a challenge. In the present study, the open-source (Computational Fluid Dynamics) CFD model REEF3D is used to simulate the breaking wave interaction with the multiple cylinders. The numerical model is based on the incompressible Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations, the level set method for the free surface and the k–ω model for turbulence. The model uses a 5th-order conservative finite difference WENO scheme for the convective discretization and a 3rd-order Runge-Kutta scheme for time discretization. The numerical model is validated with experimental data of large-scale experiments for the free surface elevation and the breaking wave force on a single cylinder. A good agreement is seen between the numerical results and experimental data. Two different configurations with four cylinders are examined: in-line square configuration and diamond square configuration. The breaking wave forces on each cylinder in the group are computed for the two cases and the results are compared with the breaking wave force on a single isolated cylinder. Further, the study investigates the water surface elevations and the free surface flow features around the cylinders. In general, the cylinders in both configurations experience the maximum forces lower than the maximum force on a single cylinder. The results of the present study show that the interference effects from the neighbouring cylinders in a group strongly influence the kinematics around and the breaking wave forces on them.


1987 ◽  
Vol 109 (4) ◽  
pp. 314-319
Author(s):  
K. Masuda ◽  
W. Kato ◽  
H. Ishizuka

The purpose of the present study is development of a powerful numerical method for calculating second-order diffraction loads on plural vertical cylinder with arbitrary cross sections. According to the present method, second-order wave force can be obtained from a linear radiation potential without solving second-order boundary value problem. The boundary value problem for the radiation potential is solved with the hybrid boundary element method. The computations for circular and rectangular cylinders were carried out and compared with the experiments. In addition, second-order wave forces on twin circular cylinder are calculated with the present method.


2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayilvahanan Alagan Chella ◽  
Hans Bihs ◽  
Arun Kamath ◽  
Dag Myrhaug ◽  
Øivind Asgeir Arntsen

The main purpose of the study is to investigate the breaking wave interaction with a group of four circular cylinders. The physical process of wave breaking involves many parameters, and an accurate numerical modeling of breaking waves and the interaction with a structure remain a challenge. In the present study, the open-source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model REEF3D is used to simulate the breaking wave interaction with multiple cylinders. The numerical model is based on the incompressible Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations, the level set method for the free surface, and the k–ω model for turbulence. The numerical model is validated with experimental data of large-scale experiments for the free surface elevation and the breaking wave force on a single cylinder. A good agreement is obtained between the numerical results and experimental data. Two different configurations with four cylinders are examined: in-line square configuration and diamond square configuration. For both configurations, three different tank widths and four different spacings between the cylinders are investigated. The breaking wave forces on each cylinder in the group are computed for each case for the two configurations, and the results are compared with the breaking wave force on a single isolated cylinder. Furthermore, the study investigates the water surface elevations and the free surface flow features around the cylinders. For the closely spaced cylinders in a relatively narrower tank, the cylinders in both configurations experience the maximum forces lower than the maximum force on a single cylinder. But for the widely spaced cylinder in a relatively wider tank, the forces are higher and lower for the upstream cylinders and downstream cylinders, respectively, than the maximum force on a single isolated cylinder. The results of the present study show that the interference effects from the neighboring cylinders in a group strongly influence the kinematics around and the breaking wave forces on them.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 1347
Author(s):  
Sen Qu ◽  
Shengnan Liu ◽  
Muk Chen Ong ◽  
Shuzheng Sun ◽  
Huilong Ren

The purpose of this paper is to numerically simulate the breaking wave past a standing cylinder with different transverse inclined angles. The numerical simulations are carried out by solving the Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) equations with the k − ω S S T turbulence model. The air–water interface is captured using the Volume of Fluid (VOF) method. The convergence studies on the grid and time-step are performed by examining the total horizontal breaking wave forces on the vertical cylinder. The present numerical results have been validated with the published experimental data. A good agreement is obtained between the present numerical results and the experimental data in terms of the surface elevation and the horizontal breaking wave force. Moreover, the total horizontal breaking wave force is decomposed into low-order and high-order wave forces through Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). It is observed that the free surface elevations in front of the cylinder and the normalized high-order wave force have a minimum value when the transverse inclined angle of the cylinder is 45°. The secondary load causing the higher-harmonic ringing motion of structures is not observed when the cylinder is placed with the transverse inclined angles of 30° and 45°.


Author(s):  
Shengnan Liu ◽  
Muk Chen Ong ◽  
Charlotte Obhrai ◽  
Sopheak Seng

Two-dimensional (2D) numerical simulations have been performed to investigate both regular and irregular waves past a fixed horizontally semisubmerged circular cylinder. The 2D simulations are carried out by solving Navier–Stokes equations discretized by finite volume method. Volume of fluid (VOF) method is employed to capture the free surface in the numerical wave tank (NWT). Validation studies have been performed by comparing the numerical results of free surface waves past the cylinder with the published experimental and numerical data. The present numerical results are in good agreement with both the experimental and the other numerical results in terms of hydrodynamic forces and free surface elevation. Subsequently, the effects of the wave height and the wavelength on wave–structure interaction are investigated by conducting numerical simulations on the regular and the irregular waves past a semisubmerged cylinder at different wave heights and the wavelengths. The averaged and maximum vertical wave forces on the cylinder increase with the increasing wave height. The numerical results for the irregular waves are compared with those induced by the regular waves in terms of the maximum and averaged vertical wave forces. When the significant wave height and the spectral peak period of the irregular waves are equal to the wave height and the wave period of the regular waves, the maximum vertical wave force induced by the irregular waves is larger than that induced by the regular waves, meanwhile, the average vertical wave forces have the contrary relationship.


2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (7) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Lars Skjelbreia

Because of the tremendous increase in offshore activities, a great effort has been made on obtaining information on wave forces on structural members. Several oil companies have invested large sums of money in the design and construction of full-scale systems for measuring the wave forces. The equipment used for measuring the forces have been single cantilevers or segmented piles designed to make discrete measurements along the pile. For instance, during the last five years, The California Company and California Research Corporation (subsidiaries of Standard Oil Company of California) operated an installation in the Gulf of Mexico with four segmented piles of different diameters. The wave forces were measured by three-foot high force dynamometers located at seven different elevations along the length of each test pile. Each dynamometer was constructed from a section of the cylindrical pile which was attached to a system of flexures on the inside. So far the wave forces have been measured on cylindrical piles varying in diameter from one to four feet and in water depths varying from 30 to 50 feet. As the pile diameter and water depth increase, however, the measurements of wave forces by use of a cantilever or a segmented pile become very difficult and expensive. Therefore, a need exists for investigating other means for measuring the wave forces on a pile. This paper will describe the design and operation of a force meter that may be clamped to an existing pile. In Spring 1960, California Research Corporation installed equipment incorporating eight of the clamp-on meters on an oil well drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico. The water depth at the location is 100 feet, and two years of operation are planned.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuebin Chen ◽  
Zhiwu Chen ◽  
Shuqun Cai ◽  
Wei Xu ◽  
Xianrong Zhuo ◽  
...  

Abstract Based on Navier–Stokes equations, a numerical model for studying the dynamic responses and mooring forces of the moored Submerged Floating Tunnel (SFT) driven by surface waves is presented in this paper. The mechanics models of the vertically and inclinedly moored floating body under wave forces are built, and the overset meshing method is employed to dynamically configure the computational meshes. Two laboratory experiments are used for validating the numerical model in terms of motion responses and mooring forces of the SFT, indicating the proposed model is capable of accurately simulating the instantaneous position of the body under the wave action. This hydrodynamic model is then utilized to simulate the wave–structure interaction of the prototype SFT designed for Qiongzhou Strait located between Mainland China and Hainan Island. The effects of the fundamental structure parameter, or the inclined mooring angle (IMA), on the dynamic responses of SFT are analyzed. The numerical experiments not only shed light on the mooring forces, as well as pitch, sway and heave responses of the SFT with various values of IMA, but also provide guidance for the choice of IMA in engineering design. The range of IMA is separated into five zones, and Zone 2 is regarded as the best choice for the design of IMA for both motion displacements and mooring forces are relatively small in this zone. Zone 3 is considered to be the worst choice as not only are motion responses of SFT severe in this zone, but also the mooring chains are at the risk of going slack under severe wave conditions.


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