Numerical investigation of wave run-up and load on heaving cylinder subjected to regular waves

Abstract

The heaving cylinder is widely used in various floating structures, and the wave run-up height and wave forces are essential parameters to be considered in the design. This paper uses OpenFOAM to numerically simulate the wave run-up and wave load of the heaving cylinder by solving the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equation. The wave run-up of the heaving cylinder is decomposed into the relative run-up height and the absolute run-up height compared with the fixed cylinder, in which the phase difference between the absolute wave run-up curve and the cylindrical motion curve is the important factor. The different wave conditions are considered, including the short wave, resonance wave and long wave. The results show that the dimensionless maximum run-up height of the heaving cylinder changes nonlinearly with the incident wave frequency. In the range of about 23% of the resonance frequency of the heaving cylinder, the increase of the relative run-up height should be considered with the reason of resonance and phase differences. The dimensionless horizontal wave force increases nonlinearly with the increased scattering parameters. The fixed and heaving cylinder results differ significantly from the theoretical value when the ka value is larger than 0.25.