2D numerical simulation of ocean waves

Abstract

As fossil energy is depleting and global warming effect is worsening rapidly, developing renewable energies become the top priority on most developed and some developing countries. Among different kinds of renewable energies, wave energy attracts more and more attention in recent years due to its high energy density and enormous global amount. However, some technical difficulties still need to be overcome for extracting wave power. In designing a wave energy converter, it is important to develop an efficient method to determine the wave load and predict its response. In this paper, a numerical investigation of ocean waves is presented. Commercial software code FLUENT is used as a computational platform in this study. Based on the Navier-Stokes equations for viscous, incompressible fluid and Volume of fluid (VOF) method, a two dimensional numerical wave tank is established. Dynamic meshing method is used to simulate the wave maker, and Geo-Reconstruct scheme is used to capture the free surface. A wave-absorbing method employing porous media model is proposed, which can absorb the wave energy efficiently. Moving boundary, wall boundary and pressure-inlet boundary are used to construct the computational domain. Linear regular waves are simulated accurately using the proposed numerical model. The numerical results matched with the theoretical calculation.