Session: 08-01-03 Ship Design and Surface Wave Effects I

Paper Number: 127472

127472 - Evaluating and Optimising the Overset Mesh Solver in Openfoam for Complex Wave Structure Interaction Simulations 

In this paper, the overset mesh solver in OpenFOAM is evaluated for modelling complex wave structure interaction problems as arising in ocean and offshore engineering applications and new algorithms that improve its accuracy and efficiency will be implemented. In particular, a new hole-cutting algorithm is implemented that utilises the distance to the overset mesh boundary, as well as the distance to the solid hole boundary, to find the optimal position for the hole boundary and interpolated cells on the background mesh. In addition, a new overset mesh assembly algorithm is also implemented that adaptively defines search boxes for the hole-cutting process depending on the motion of a moving structure, rather than using the entire mesh domain as was the case in previous implementations. The new overset solver is then comprehensively validated through a series of test cases involving wave interaction with offshore structures such as wave energy converters and floating wind turbine support structures. Profiling on the updated code is also done to demonstrate the improvement in performance. The new algorithms are shown to produce accurate numerical solutions that agree well with existing numerical results and experimental data. A significant reduction in computational time compared to previous OpenFOAM overset implementations is also achieved.

Presenting Author: Ling Qian Manchester Metropolitan University

Presenting Author Biography: Ling Qian is Professor of Computational Fluid Dynamics at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. His research interest is in the area of computational modelling of fluid flow with applications in ocean, offshore and aerospace engineering. He has over 110 publications in academic journals and international conferences and has been supported by over 10 research grants from the UK Research Councils such as EPSRC and NERC.

Authors:

Ranjodh Rai Manchester Metropolitan University
Ling Qian Manchester Metropolitan University
Zhihua Ma Manchester Metropolitan University
Wei Bai Manchester Metropolitan University