Increasing stable time step sizes in ice sheet modelling

Author(s):  
Andre Löfgren ◽  
Josefin Ahlkrona

<p>In order to understand the rate at which an ice sheet is losing mass one has to consider its dynamics. Ice is a very slow moving, highly viscous, non-newtonian fluid and as such is most accurately described by the full Stokes equation. Time dependence is taken into account by coupling the Stokes equation to the so called free surface equation, which describes how the free surface boundary of the ice sheet is advected due to the Stokes velocity field.</p><p>A problem with this system is that it is numerically quite unstable and has a very strict time step constraint, where very small time steps are needed in order to have a stable solver. This constitutes a severe limitation for making long term predictions as the expensive nonlinear Stokes equation has to be solved in each time step.</p><p>By adding an additional term to the weak form of the Stokes equation we achieve stability for time steps 10-20 times larger than without stabilization. This stabilization technique is straightforward to implement into existing code and does not result in significantly larger computation times or memory usage.</p>

Author(s):  
Gerasimos A. Kolokythas ◽  
Athanassios A. Dimas

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.


Author(s):  
Xinshu Zhang ◽  
Robert F. Beck

Three-dimensional, time-domain, wave-body interactions are studied in this paper for cases with and without forward speed. In the present approach, an exact body boundary condition and linearized free surface boundary conditions are used. By distributing desingularized sources above the calm water surface and using constant-strength panels on the exact submerged body surface, the boundary integral equations are solved numerically at each time step. Once the fluid velocities on the free surface are computed, the free surface elevation and potential are updated by integrating the free surface boundary conditions. After each time step, the body surface and free surface are regrided due to the instantaneous changing submerged body geometry. The desingularized method applied on the free surface produces non-singular kernels in the integral equations by moving the fundamental singularities a small distance outside of the fluid domain. Constant strength panels are used for bodies with any arbitrary shape. Extensive results are presented to validate the efficiency of the present method. These results include the added mass and damping computations for a hemisphere. The calm water wave resistance for a submerged spheroid and a Wigley hull are also presented. All the computations with forward speed are started from rest and proceed until a steady state is reached. Finally, the time-domain forced motion results for a modified Wigley hull with forward speed are shown and compared with the experiments for both linear computations and body-exact computations.


2010 ◽  
Vol 54 (02) ◽  
pp. 79-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinshu Zhang ◽  
Piotr Bandyk ◽  
Robert F. Beck

Large-amplitude, time-domain, wave-body interactions are studied in this paper for problems with forward speed. Both two-dimensional strip theory and three-dimensional computation methods are shown and compared by a number of numerical simulations. In the present approach, an exact body boundary condition and linearized free surface boundary conditions are used. By distributing desingularized sources above the calm water surface and using constant-strength flat panels on the exact body surface, the boundary integral equations are solved numerically at each time step. The strip theory method implements Radial Basis Functions to approximate the longitudinal derivatives of the velocity potential on the body. Once the fluid velocities on the free surface are computed, the free surface elevation and potential are updated by integrating the free surface boundary conditions. After each time step, the body surface and free surface are regrided due to the instantaneous changing wetted body geometry. Extensive results are presented to validate the efficiency of the present methods. These results include the added mass and damping computations for a Wigley III hull and an S-175 hull with forward speed using both two-dimensional and three-dimensional approaches. Exciting forces acting on a Wigley III hull due to regular head seas are obtained and compared using both the fully three-dimensional method and the two-dimensional strip theory. All the computational results are compared with experiments or other numerical solutions.


Author(s):  
Dakui Feng ◽  
Xianzhou Wang ◽  
Zhiguo Zhang ◽  
Yanming Guan

The catamaran is composed of two monohulls, the flow fields between the inner and outer side of each monohull are different, the bodies must be considered as lifting bodies. So it is very important to know the lifting effect on hydrodynamic characteristics of catamaran hull at the preliminary design stage of its hull form. The pressure Kutta condition is imposed on the trailing-surface of the lifting body by determining the dipole distribution, which generates required circulation on the lifting part. The method is based on Green’s second theorem. Rankine Sources and dipoles are placed on boundary surfaces. Time-stepping scheme is adopted to simulate the wave generated by the catamaran with a uniform speed in deep water. The values of the potential and position of the free surface are updated by integrating the nonlinear Lagrangian free surface boundary conditions for every time. A moving computational window is used in the computations by truncating the fluid domain (the free surface) into a computational domain. The grid regeneration scheme is developed to determine the approximate position of the free surface for the next time step. An implicit implement of far field condition is enforced automatically at the truncation boundary of the computational window, Radiation condition is satisfied automatically. The influences on the wave making resistance of the distance between the twin hulls of the Wigley catamaran on the hydrodynamic characteristics are discussed. The numerical results are presented compared with the existing simulation result. The method can be used to simulate the flow fields around the foil near free surface.


Author(s):  
Xinshu Zhang ◽  
Robert F. Beck

Three-dimensional, time-domain, wave-body interactions are studied in this paper for cases with and without forward speed. In the present approach, an exact body boundary condition and linearized free surface boundary conditions are used. By distributing desingularized sources above the calm water surface and using constant-strength flat panels on the exact wetted body surface, the boundary integral equations are numerically solved at each time step. Once the fluid velocities on the free surface are computed, the free surface elevation and potential are updated by integrating the free surface boundary conditions. After each time step, the body surface and free surface are regrided due to the instantaneous wetted body geometry. The desingularized method applied on the free surface produces nonsingular kernels in the integral equations by moving the fundamental singularities a small distance outside of the fluid domain. Constant-strength flat panels are used for bodies with any arbitrary shape. Extensive results are presented to validate the efficiency of the present method. These results include the added mass and damping computations for a hemisphere. The calm water wave resistance for a submerged spheroid and a Wigley hull are also presented. All the computations with forward speed are started from rest and proceeded until a steady state is reached. Finally, the time-domain forced motion results for a modified Wigley hull with forward speed are shown and compared to the experiments for both linear computations and body-exact computations.


Author(s):  
Aggelos S. Dimakopoulos ◽  
Athanassios A. Dimas

A numerical model is presented for the simulation of the two-dimensional, inviscid, free-surface flow developing by the propagation and breaking of water waves over a flat bottom of steep slope. The simulation is based on the numerical solution of the unsteady, two-dimensional, Euler equations subject to the fully-nonlinear free-surface boundary conditions, the non-penetration condition at the bottom and appropriate inflow and outflow conditions. A boundary-fitted transformation, which includes both the time-dependent free surface and the arbitrary bottom shape, is applied. For the numerical solution of the Euler equations, a two-stage fractional time-step method is employed for the temporal discretization, while a hybrid scheme is used for the spatial discretization. Finite differences are used in the streamwise direction and a pseudo-spectral method in the vertical direction. An absorption zone is placed at the outflow region in order to minimize wave reflection by the outflow boundary. Wave breaking is modeled by a surface roller breaking model, which modifies the dynamic free-surface condition. The simulation results are in very good agreement with available experimental results for the wave propagation and breaking over bottom with slope 1:35. Results, from the simulations over bottom with steeper slopes of 1:15 and 1:10, which generate strong spilling and mild plunging breakers, respectively, are also in very good agreement with available predictions for the breaking depth and wave height. In all cases, a vortex is formed under the breaking wave front and convected in the surf zone.


2009 ◽  
Vol 627 ◽  
pp. 179-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
OKEY G. NWOGU

A computationally efficient numerical method is developed to investigate nonlinear interactions between steep surface gravity waves and depth-varying ocean currents. The free-surface boundary conditions are used to derive a coupled set of equations that are integrated in time for the evolution of the free-surface elevation and tangential component of the fluid velocity at the free surface. The vector form of Green's second identity is used to close the system of equations. The closure relationship is consistent with Helmholtz's decomposition of the velocity field into rotational and irrotational components. The rotational component of the flow field is given by the Biot–Savart integral, while the irrotational component is obtained from an integral of a mixed distribution of sources and vortices over the free surface. Wave-induced changes to the vorticity field are modelled using the vorticity transport equation. For weak currents, an explicit expression is derived for the wave-induced vorticity field in Fourier space that negates the need to numerically solve the vorticity transport equation. The computational efficiency of the numerical scheme is further improved by expanding the kernels of the boundary and volume integrals in the closure relationship as a power series in a wave steepness parameter and using the fast Fourier transform method to evaluate the leading-order contribution to the convolution integrals. This reduces the number of operations at each time step from O(N2) to O(NlogN) for the boundary integrals and O[(NM)2] to O(NlogN) for the volume integrals, where N is the number of horizontal grid points and M is the number of vertical layers, making the model an order of magnitude faster than traditional boundary/volume integral methods. The numerical model is used to investigate nonlinear wave–current interaction in depth-uniform current fields and the modulational instability of gravity waves in an exponentially sheared current in deep water. The numerical results demonstrate that the mean flow vorticity can significantly affect the growth rate of extreme waves in narrowband sea states.


Author(s):  
Cécile Raoult ◽  
Marissa L. Yates ◽  
Michel Benoit

Accurate wave propagation models are required for the design of coastal structures and the evaluation of coastal risks. Nonlinear and dispersive effects are particularly important in the nearshore environment. Two-dimensional cross-shore (2DV) wave models can be used as a preliminary step in coastal studies, but 3D models are needed to capture fully the effects of alongshore bathymetric variations, variable wave incidence, the presence of coastal or harbor structures, etc. Yates and Benoit (2015) developed a numerical model based on fully nonlinear potential flow theory. By assuming non-overturning waves, the kinematic and dynamic free surface boundary conditions are expressed as evolution equations of the free surface elevation and velocity potential, following Zakharov (1968). At each time step, the free surface vertical velocity is estimated by solving the Laplace equation for the velocity potential in the domain. Following Tian and Sato (2008), a spectral approach is used to expand the velocity potential in the vertical as a linear combination of Chebyshev polynomials. The accuracy of the 2DV model was validated with several non-breaking experimental test cases (Benoit et al., 2014; Raoult et al., 2016). Here the model is extended to 3D using scattered nodes (for flexibility) to discretize the horizontal domain. Spatial derivatives are estimated at each node using a linear combination of the function values at neighboring points using Radial Basis Functions (RBF) (Wright and Fornberg, 2006). The accuracy of the method depends on the number of neighboring nodes (Nsten) and the chosen RBF type (e.g. multiquadric, Gaussian, polyharmonic spline (PHS), thin plate spline, etc.), with associated shape factor C for some of them.


2013 ◽  
Vol 57 (01) ◽  
pp. 13-23
Author(s):  
Wei Qiu ◽  
Hongxuan (Heather) Peng

Motions of a floating body in waves are computed in the time domain by solving the body-exact problem with the panel-free method and exact geometry. In the present study, the body boundary condition is imposed on the instantaneous wetted surface exactly at each time step. The free surface boundary is assumed linear so that the time-domain Green function can be applied. The body geometry is represented by NonUniform Rational B-Spline surfaces. At each time step, the instantaneous wetted surface is obtained by trimming the entire body surface. With the panel-free method, the body-exact problems are solved without involving repanelization of the wetted hull surface at each time step. Validation studies have been carried out for a submerged sphere, a flared body, and a Wigley hull. The hydrodynamic forces on the submerged sphere undergoing large-amplitude motion were computed and compared with analytical solutions. For the flared body oscillating in a free surface and the Wigley hull in waves, numerical results were compared with experimental data and solutions by other numerical methods.


Author(s):  
Piotr J. Bandyk ◽  
Robert F. Beck

Modern offshore structure and ship design requires an understanding of responses in large seas. A nonlinear time-domain method may be used to perform computational analyses of these events. To be useful in preliminary design, the method must be computationally efficient and accurate. This paper presents a body-exact strip theory approach to compute wave-body interactions for large amplitude ship motions. The exact body boundary conditions and linearized free surface boundary conditions are used. At each time step, the body surface and free surface are regrided due to the changing wetted body geometry. Numerical and real hull forms are used in the computations. Validation and comparisons of hydrodynamic forces are presented. Selected results are shown illustrating the robustness and capabilities of the body-exact strip theory. Finally, an equation of motion solver is implemented to predict the motions of the vessel in a seaway.


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