Session: 08-03-02 Free Surface Flows

Paper Number: 107186

107186 - Numerical Prediction of Dynamic Pressure Loads in a Dam Break Case With the Direct Surface Description Method 

The safety of an offshore structure relies on the structural load capacity being higher than the experienced loads. We are specifically interested in estimating the wave loads on offshore structures with the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code OpenFOAM. We have recently developed a new method called the Direct Surface Description (DSD) method in OpenFOAM (Qwist & Christensen, 2022) and (Qwist & Christensen, 2023). Here it was shown that the DSD method is superior compared to the existing official release OpenFOAM solver with respect to prediction of wave kinematics and surface elevation. Furthermore, a solution was provided for a long-standing issue with spurious velocities near the free surface in the OpenFOAM official release solvers. In this work our aim is to study the classical dam break to validate the dynamic pressure prediction with the DSD method and to compare the DSD method to the existing official release solvers in OpenFOAM. The numerical predictions will be compared to the experimental measurements of the dynamic pressure when the toe of the dam break impacts the vertical wall (Lobovský, Botia-Vera, Castellana, Mas-Soler, & Souto-Iglesias, 2014). This is the step towards improved predictions of the slamming forces when large waves impacts offshore structures. In addition to the comparison of dynamics pressure loads, the paper aims to address several aspects of the DSD method including mass conservation, current handling of violent flows, effect of adaptive time stepping.

References:

Lobovský, L., Botia-Vera, E., Castellana, F., Mas-Soler, J., & Souto-Iglesias, A. (2014). Experimental investigation of dynamic pressure loads during dam break. Journal of Fluids and Structures, 48, 407–434. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfluidstructs.2014.03.009

Qwist, J. R. K., & Christensen, E. D. (2022). Solitary wave propagation using a novel single fluid finite volume method for free surface gravity waves. Proceedings of the ASME 2022 41st International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering. Hamburg.

Qwist, J. R. K., & Christensen, E. D. (2023). Development and implementation of a Direct Surface Description method for free surface flows in OpenFOAM. Coastal Engineering, 179(October 2022), 104227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coastaleng.2022.104227

 

Presenting Author: Erik Damgaard Christensen Technical University of Denmark

Presenting Author Biography: Professor in Hydraulic and Coastal Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark.
The main subjects of the research and projects are:
- Analyses of breaking waves
- Flow around offshore and coastal structures
- Sediment transport, shoreline development
- Wave loads on large structures such as offshore wind turbine foundations.
DTU: Professor 2010-Now
DHI: 1996-2010 Head of Innovation of Marine Infrastructure and Energy
DTU: 1993-1996 PhD-student in Coastal Hydrodynamics

Authors:

Jesper Roland Kjærgaard Qwist Technical University of Denmark
Erik Damgaard Christensen Technical University of Denmark