Numerical Simulation of Solitary-Wave Propagation over a Steady Current
Publication: Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering
Volume 141, Issue 3
Abstract
A two-dimensional numerical model is developed to study the propagation of a solitary wave in the presence of a steady current flow. The numerical model is based on the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations with a turbulence closure scheme and an internal wave-maker method. To capture the air-water interface, the volume of fluid (VOF) method is used in the numerical simulation. The current flow is initialized by imposing a steady inlet velocity on one computational domain end and a constant pressure outlet on the other end. The desired wave is generated by an internal wave maker. The propagation of a solitary wave traveling with a following/opposing current is simulated. The effects of the current velocity on the solitary-wave motion are investigated. The results show that the solitary wave has a smaller wave height, larger wave width, and higher traveling speed after interacting with a following current. Contrariwise, the solitary wave becomes higher with a smaller wave width and lower traveling speed with an opposing current. The regression equations for predicting the wave height, wave width, and traveling speed of the resulting solitary wave are for practical engineering applications. The impacts of the current flow on the induced velocity and the turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) of a solitary wave are also investigated.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful for support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grants No. 51209083, No. 51137002, and No. 41176073; the National Natural Science Foundation of China for Distinguished Young Scholars (51425930); the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (China) Grant No. BK2011026; the 111 Project under Grant No. B12032; the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central University, China (2013B31614); and the Carnegie Trust for Scottish Universities. The authors are grateful for the constructive comments made by reviewers, which significantly improved the quality of the final manuscript.
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Published In
Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering
Volume 141 • Issue 3 • May 2015
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 15, 2012
Accepted: Aug 19, 2014
Published online: Oct 1, 2014
Published in print: May 1, 2015
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