Simulation of spilling breaking waves using a two phase flow CFD model

Abstract

A two phase flow CFD model has been developed for 2D spilling breaking wave simulations. A mass conservative level set method similar to Olsson and Kreiss [Olsson E, Kreiss G. A conservative level set method for two phase flow. J Comput Phys 2005;210(1):225–46] is implemented for capturing the air–water interface. The solver is discretised using a finite volume method based on a curvilinear coordinate system. A fully implicit fractional step method is used to advance simulations in time. The solver has been tested and validated by repeating benchmark results of dam breaking simulation and travelling solitary wave simulation. Finally, we employ this solver to simulate spilling breaking waves in the surf zone. Our results show that surface elevations, the location of the breaking point and undertow profiles can generally be well captured. We have also found that temporal and spatial schemes may have significant impacts on computational results.