Simulation of wave overtopping using an improved SPH method

Abstract

An improved Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method is used to study wave overtopping for different coastal structures. Simulated wave overtopping is too sensitive to the particle movements near the free surface boundary; however, the calculated flow acceleration by means of common SPH methods is not free of errors at this boundary due to the truncation of kernel function and contribution of fewer particles in solving the governing equations. In this paper, this problem is solved by modifying the viscosity of surface particles based on the concept of surface viscosity originally introduced by Xu (2010). By means of the introduced modification, unrealistic particle fluctuation at free surface boundary can be decreased significantly while keeping the model accuracy. This improvement can be used for both Incompressible and Weakly Compressible SPH methods and its implementation is easy and computationally efficient too. Different cases including dam break, solitary wave breaking and wave overtopping at vertical and sloping seawalls are simulated with the modified model and the new model is validated via comparing the results with several experimental and numerical data. Based on this study, free surface boundary can be simulated more accurately by means of the introduced modification and as a result, the predicted values particularly the calculated wave-overtopping rate become more reliable.