Numerical simulation and comparison of potential flow and viscous fluid models in near trapping of narrow gaps

Abstract

Numerical simulation results of fluid oscillation in narrow gaps subjected to incident water waves are presented in this paper. Both viscous fluid model and potential flow model with artificial viscous damping are employed to investigate wave motions in a single narrow gap separated by twin bodies and double narrow gaps formed by three identical bodies. Variation of wave heights in the narrow gaps with incident wave frequency is compared with experimental data available in literatures. The numerical results demonstrate that both the viscous fluid model and the potential flow model are able to predict the resonant frequency reasonably well. However the conventional potential flow model (without introducing the artificial viscous damping) significantly over-predicts the wave height in narrow gaps around the resonant frequency. The potential flow model with artificial damping predicts resonant wave heights well with a properly tuned (or calibrated) damping coefficient. The horizontal wave force on the individual body is also examined in this work. It is found that a properly calibrated damping coefficient is also very important for estimating the horizontal wave forces on the structures. A damping coefficient of 0.4 in the potential flow model is found to result in satisfactory predictions of wave heights in the narrow gaps and the horizontal hydrodynamic force for the cases considered in this work.