Numerical study on the capture capacity of coastal Seabin-type debris collection devices under regular waves

Abstract

Intensive human activities have led to an increase in the amount of debris in waterways and oceans. Seabin, which uses a water pump to accomplish waste recycling, is a typical refuse-removal device in ports and wharves. Some studies of Seabin often ignore the effect of water pumping on the flow fields or wave actions on the motion of floating garbage. To accurately simulate the water pumping and reproduce the process of litter drift, the two-phase solver with mass sink function was developed to simulate water pumping. This method can overcome the limitations of the boundary method in simulating pumping, while simultaneously working with the wave-generating boundary method to realize the simultaneous action of the water pump and wave. And the overset grid method was used to simulate the motion of litter. Based on the simulation results, it is proved that the mass sink method proposed in this paper can accurately simulate the pumping of water. The time and velocity of the motion of floating debris under the action of the waves were also obtained by simulation, which means that the simulation of the motion of floating debris under the combined action of Seabin pumping and waves is realized.