Numerical modeling of realistic waves and body interaction studies are indispensable for maritime transport, oil and gas, and various ocean-based renewable energy projects. Robust numerical simulations help to understand the problem before experimental investigations are conducted, thus saving time and costs.
When robust numerical simulations involving water waves are needed, potential flow solvers are the state of the art. Among the many numerical techniques available in the literature, such as finite difference methods, finite element methods, finite volume methods, etc., the higher-order boundary element method (HOBEM) is used in this study. Boundary Element Method (BEM) requires only the discretization of the boundary. Since our interest lies in the physics at the interface of wave and body and how they interact with each other, a Numerical Wave Tank (NWT) based on HOBEM is developed and used for the wave-structure interaction study. A two-dimensional fully nonlinear potential flow-based numerical wave tank is developed by adopting a mixed Eulerian and Lagrangian (MEL) technique.
Along with the development of the numerical scheme, the modeling effort is focused on applying it to solve nonlinear wave body and wave-current interaction problems. The research aims to fill the knowledge gaps on wave propagation problem over a submerged bar, wave-current interaction and wave rigid body interaction for the case of surface piercing fixed body and the case of surface piercing floating body. Finally, a floating body's ringing of roll motion will be modeled and studied using the developed numerical wave tank.