On the study of a body force model for a jetting type breakwater

Abstract

The introduction of jetting-type floating breakwaters can significantly enhance the performance of large floating marine structures. Especially, this novel technology may effectively handle traditional breakwaters' bottleneck, namely, weak wave dissipation performance under large period waves. In this paper, a new method is established using body force model, in conjunction with a computational fluid dynamics solver and dynamic overlapping mesh technology, to simulate jetting-type floating breakwaters. The mathematical model is elucidated in the context of fluid mechanics, propellers body force model, and floating breakwaters’ geometric aspects. The method is proved to be compact and flexible in terms of implementation, offering advantages for the simulation of floating breakwaters employing hydraulic systems. Moreover, the new method can resolve low efficiency during computation, normally caused by fine local flows when simulating long-range jetting-type floating breakwaters: By controlling parameters precisely, it simulates accelerating local flows, high-speed water-jets, and it offers efficient visualization of the water-jets and their effects on floating breakwaters. Results show that the novel jetting-type floating breakwater significantly enhances wave dissipation. A comparison is performed between the novel breakwater against the typical example of square box floating breakwater with same dimensions and under wave incidence, thus the accuracy of the method was verified likewise. This research provides a new numerical method for jetting technologies applied to floating breakwaters and porous structures, also offering valuable insights for new types of wave dissipation methods.