Numerical Simulation of the Combined Wave-Current Force Distributions on Large-Scale Underwater Objects

Abstract

In the design of undersea oil tanks, the computation of stability and the structural analysis needs parameters regarding the combined wave-current force on the surfaces of these large-scale objects. In this paper, numerical simulation is employed to calculate the wave-current forces on the circular surfaces along the whole depth with Fluent software. The calculation uses RNG k-ε model, VOF method and dynamic meshes to finish the task, with the selected water depth and wave and current elements similar to those of Chinese Bohai Bay. The computational results find drag forces, lift forces as well as composite forces shift periodically in coincidence with the wave periods, among them, the lift forces have bigger and more stable values than the drag forces, and have more strong effects on the composite forces.