Numerical investigation of an internal solitary wave interaction with tandem horizontal cylinders

Abstract

To investigate the effect of the position (L) and centre-to-centre (D) distance of tandem cylinders on hydrodynamic characteristics, an internal solitary wave (ISW) propagation over the tandem horizontal cylinders is simulated based on OpenFOAM. The agreement between the numerical simulation results of the force on single cylinder and experimental data indicates that the numerical model employed can well simulate the interaction between ISW and cylinder. The hydrodynamic characteristics including the force, maximum dynamic pressure and vorticity around the tandem two cylinders are revealed. The distribution of maximum forces on each cylinder located at different L is not sensitive to the change of D. Both the intensity and distribution of maximum dynamic pressures and vortices around two cylinders are easily affected by the variations of L and D. The maximum dynamic pressures around cylinder 1 are greater than those around cylinder 2. Based on the regression analysis, a formula of force variation range ratio of the tandem two cylinders is established. Once the extreme values of the forces on the single cylinder have been obtained, it is possible to calculate the range variation of forces on each of the tandem two cylinders under the same simulation condition.