Simulation of Ocean Waves and Marine Currents by Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Method

Using the advances in smoothed particle hydrodynamics method in the numerical simulation of the ocean waves and marine currents is the aim of this study. The ocean wave has been proposed to be one of the most commercially feasible energy sources .The modeling of the ocean waves and currents is crucial to recognize wave and marine energy resources. The smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method and its solver called SPHysics are suitable to analyze the free surface phenomena, because it can easily match with large and complicated geometric and regions. The main idea of the SPH is developing an accurate numerical solution for governing equations with all types of existing boundary conditions by using a set of particles without any mesh. The SPH describes the physical properties of each particle based on the property of neighboring particles. The last version of the serial SPHysics code, V2.2.1, which is based on the SPH method, is applied for numerical modeling in this study. The wave breaking on the sloping beach is endorsed as a validation test case. In this case, the simulation is carried out for three types of breaking wave which are Spilling, Plunging and Surging. According to approach of Grilli et al., the type of breaking wave is obtained due to the slope and dimensionless wave height factor. The results represent a considerable similarity between the computational models and the simulation of breaking waves by the SPHysics. For modeling ocean wave, the wave maker generates waves on the free surface with different periods and amplitude according to the far field Biesel transfer function. In addition, the water surface elevation and the particle velocity components in the sub layers of the still water level can be plotted by Matlab. The results show that the water surface elevation and particle velocity depend on the height of wave and the wave period. It is important to investigate the marine currents when the waves occur on the free surface of ocean. Finally, the total energy in the waves which consists of potential energy and kinetic energy is analyzed for different ocean waves. In short, total energy will increase as the amplitude of wave maker increases and the wave period decreases. Keywords: smoothed particle hydrodynamics, SPHysics, ocean wave, wave maker