Solitary Wave Generation and Propagation under Hypergravity Fields

Qiao-Sha Wang,Ming-Hai Li,Dai-Wei Li

doi:10.3390/w10101381

Abstract

The traditional small-scale marine engineering experiments that are performed under normal gravity fields always encounter one stubborn difficulty related to full-scale prototype models. However, the difficulty can be resolved by centrifuge experiments that can generate hypergravity fields in which the centrifuge acceleration is many times greater than the gravity acceleration. In this study, the generation of solitary waves in hypergravity fields is proposed using solitary wavemaker theory and scaling laws. A series of case simulations are performed under four different gravity fields (1 g, 30 g, 50 g, and 100 g, where g is the gravity acceleration). These cases are presented and discussed in detail to understand and verify the scaling laws and the stability of the solitary wave during its generation and propagation within hypergravity fields. The numerical results show that the waveform and the static pressure field that are obtained during the simulations performed under different gravity fields agree well at the macroscale. Since the velocity field is sensitive to wave attenuation, time lag, fluid viscosity and surface tension, some discrepancies can be found in the velocity field. It should be noted that the fluid viscosity and surface tension have influence on the wave attenuation. However, wave attenuation and time lag can be offset by a well-designed incident wave condition.

Highlights

Coupled with the scarcity of land, population growth has led to the widespread overexploitation of the coasts and oceans
The solitary wave heights considered under the normal gravity field are chosen based on the wave height presented by Chen et al [5]; the wave heights that are used under other gravity fields are calculated by scaling laws that are based on the wave height used under the normal gravity field
The relative wave heights that are used in this study are 0.2, 0.3, and 0.34, which are within the range of the relative wave height used by Chen et al [5] and

Summary

Introduction

Coupled with the scarcity of land, population growth has led to the widespread overexploitation of the coasts and oceans. There is a significant demand for further research to address these topics and update the currently considered design codes and construction approaches to ensure the reliability and durability of the structures serviced under extreme meteorological and hydrological conditions For this purpose, a series of studies have been performed on a variety of topics, including simulations of tsunami propagation in the Pacific Ocean and its impacts on the coastal regions of China [3,4], tsunami-induced sediment transport [5], on-bottom stability analysis of cylinders under solitary waves [6], long wave and shelf interactions [7,8,9,10,11,12,13] and flooding-building interactions [14]. There is an inherent difficulty in such studies in that the scale of the engineering involved tends to be massive, while prototype or full-scale experiments are

Methods

Results

Conclusion