Experimental Validation of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics on Generation and Propagation of Water Waves

Abstract

This paper is aimed to validate smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) on the generation and propagation of water waves. It is a classical problem in marine engineering but a still important problem because there is a strong demand to generate intended nonlinear water waves and to predict complicated interactions between nonlinear water waves and fixed/floating bodies, which is indispensable for further ocean utilization and development. A dedicated experiment was conducted in a large wave basin of Kobe University equipped with a piston-type wavemaker, at three water depths using several amplitudes and periods of piston motion for the validation of SPH mainly on the long-distance propagation of water waves. An SPH-based two-dimensional numerical wave tank (NWT) is used for numerical simulation and is accelerated by a graphics processing units (GPU), assuming future applications to realistic engineering problems. In addition, comparison of large-deformation of shallow water waves, when passing over a fixed box-shape obstacle, is also investigated to discuss the applicability to wave-structure interaction problems. Finally, an SPH-based three-dimensional NWT is also validated by comparing with an experiment and two-dimensional simulation. Through these validation studies, detailed discussion on the accuracy of SPH simulation of water waves is made as well as providing a recommended set of SPH parameters.