scholarly journals Investigation of Higher-Harmonic Wave Forces and Ringing Using CFD Simulations

Author(s):  
Arun Kamath ◽  
Hans Bihs ◽  
Csaba Pakozdi

Typical offshore structures are designed as tension-leg platforms or gravity based structures with cylindrical substructures. The interaction of waves with the vertical cylinders in high sea states can result in a resonant response called ringing. Here, the frequency of the structural response is close to the natural frequency of the structure itself and leads to large amplitude motions. This is a case of extreme wave loading in high sea states. This understanding of higher-order wave forces in extreme sea states is an essential parameter for obtaining a safe, reliable and economical design of an offshore structure. The study of such higher-order effects needs detailed near-field modelling of the wave-structure interaction and the associated flow phenomena. In such cases, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model that can accurately represent the free surface and further the wave-structure interaction problem can provide important insights into the wave hydrodynamics and the structural response. In this paper, the open source CFD model REEF3D is used to simulate wave interaction with a vertical cylinder and the wave forces on the cylinder are calculated. The harmonic components of the wave force are analysed. The model employs higher-order discretisation schemes such as a fifth-order WENO scheme for convection discretisation and a third-order Runge-Kutta scheme for time advancement on a staggered Cartesian grid. The level set method is used to obtain the free surface, providing a sharp interface between air and water. The relaxation method is used to generate and absorb the waves at the two ends of the numerical wave tank. This method provides good quality wave generation and also the wave reflected from the cylinder are absorbed at the wave generation zone. In this way, the generated waves are not affected by the wave interaction process in the numerical wave tank. This is very essential in the studies of higher-order wave interaction problems which are very sensitive to the incident wave characteristics. The numerical results are compared to experimental results for higher-order forces on a vertical cylinder to validate the numerical model.

Author(s):  
Griet Decorte ◽  
Alessandro Toffoli ◽  
Geert Lombaert ◽  
Jaak Monbaliu

Abstract Although wave-wave interaction phenomena in random seas have shown to lead to a departure from Gaussian statistics and therefore to a higher occurrence of extreme waves, they are usually not taken along in the assessment of the dynamic behaviour of offshore structures. Supported by a rapid increase of computational resources, the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models has become viable for studying the above mentioned wave-structure interaction phenomena. Still, these models remain computationally expensive, which impedes their use for the large domains and the long periods of time necessary for studying non-Gaussian seas. Therefore, a one-way domain decomposition strategy is proposed, which takes advantage of the recent advances in CFD as well as of the computational benefits of the higher-order spectral (HOS) models previously used to assess non-Gaussian seas. The unidirectional non-Gaussian sea obtained by this coupled HOS-CFD model shows excellent agreement with the target wave field generated by the higher-order spectral numerical wave tank. In addition, the wave-structure interaction for a simplified monopile, which is excited by a non-Gaussian sea, seems to be captured well.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Bihs ◽  
Mayilvahanan Alagan Chella ◽  
Arun Kamath ◽  
Øivind A. Arnsten

For the stability of offshore structures, such as offshore wind foundations, extreme wave conditions need to be taken into account. Waves from extreme events can become critical from design perspective. In a numerical wave tank, extreme waves can be generated through focussed waves. Here, linear waves are generated from a wave spectrum. The wave crests of the generated waves coincide at a pre-selected location and time. 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 shows good agreement with the measurements from experiments. In further computations, the wave impact of the focussed waves on a vertical circular cylinder is investigated. The focussed 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 CFD code REEF3D solves the three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations on a staggered Cartesian grid. Solid boundaries are taken into account with the ghost cell immersed boundary method. For the discretization of the convection terms of the momentum equations, the conservative finite difference version of the fifth-order WENO (weighted essentially non-oscillatory) scheme is used. For temporal treatment, the third-order TVD (total variation diminishing) Runge-Kutta scheme is employed. For the pressure, the projection method is used. The free surface flow is solved as two-phase fluid system. For the interface capturing, the level set method is selected. The level set function can be discretized with high-order differencing schemes. This makes it the appropriate solution for wave propagation problems based on Navier-Stokes solvers, which requires high-order numerical methods to avoid artificial wave damping. The numerical model is fully parallelized based on the domain decomposition, using MPI (message passing interface) for internode communication.


2012 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 9-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Westphalen ◽  
D.M. Greaves ◽  
C.J.K. Williams ◽  
A.C. Hunt-Raby ◽  
J. Zang

Author(s):  
Noor Al Anjari ◽  
Mohamad Al Khalidi ◽  
Subramaniam Neelamani

The performance of single and twin slotted walls of varying porosity and slope angles is experimentally investigated, in order to understand the wave-structure interaction and to asses the characteristics of wave transmission, wave reflection, and wave energy dissipation under random wave conditions.


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