A two-way coupling method for simulating wave-induced breakup of ice floes based on SPH

Abstract

In this paper, a new numerical method for simulating the breakup of ice floes in water waves will be presented. The method is based on Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) but several new numerical techniques are developed to address the challenges associated with wave-ice interaction including breakup. One of them is the new interaction model for fluid-ice interaction, which is not only suitable for small density ratio but also for large density ratio. This model may also be employed by other methods for dealing with general fluid-structure integration. In addition, a technique for modelling the separation of broken ice pieces is developed. Apart from these, a treatment is proposed to rectify the problem caused by unequal time steps in simulating ice and fluid, which is necessary for achieving higher computational efficiency. The numerical method is validated by comparing the numerical results with the experimental data available in literature, which shows that the agreement between them is satisfactory. On this basis, the breakup of ice floes induced by solitary waves and focused waves are studied. To the best of knowledge of the authors, it is the first method which can simulate the ice breaking in waves by two-way coupling approach. The results for ice breaking in solitary and focused waves have not been found so far in previous publications available in literature.