Solitary-wave loads on a three-dimensional submerged horizontal plate: Numerical computations and comparison with experiments.

Abstract

A parallelized three-dimensional (3D) boundary element method is used to simulate the interaction between an incoming solitary wave and a 3D submerged horizontal plate under the assumption of potential flow. The numerical setup follows closely the setup of laboratory experiments recently performed at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The numerical results are compared with the experimental results. An overall good agreement is found for the two-dimensional wave elevation, the horizontal force and the vertical force exerted on the plate, and the pitching moment. Even though there are some discrepancies, the comparison shows that a model solving the fully nonlinear potential flow equations with a free surface using a 3D boundary element method can satisfactorily capture the main features of the interaction between nonlinear waves and a submerged horizontal plate.