C.W. Li

Wave–current interaction with a vertical square cylinder

Abstract A three-dimensional numerical model is developed in this study to investigate the problem of wave–current–body interaction. The model solves the spatially averaged Navier–Stokes equations. Turbulence effects are modeled by a subgrid-scale (SGS) model using the concept of large eddy simulation (LES). The model is employed to study the wave–current interaction with a square cylinder that is mounted on the bottom and vertically pierces the free surface. The force analysis demonstrates that the presence of waves can reduce both the strength and frequency of vortex shedding induced by a uniform current due to the nonlinear wave–current interaction. The free surface elevation, strain rates of the mean flow, and eddy viscosity are found to closely correlate with the mechanism of vortex shedding. It is also shown that when the vortex shedding is neglected in the calculation such as by the potential flow approach, one may significantly underestimate the magnitude of in-line force. The energy spectral analysis reveals that there exist initiating, growing, and decaying regions for shedding vortices around the cylinder. In the vortex initiating region, both coherent and turbulent structures are nearly two-dimensional that become three-dimensional in the vortex growing region. The kinetic energy of both coherent and turbulent motions is dissipated in the vortex decaying region, within which the mean flow gradually returns back to two-dimensional.

A numerical study of three-dimensional wave interaction with a square cylinder

Abstract In this study, a three-dimensional numerical model is used to study the wave interaction with a vertical rectangular pile. The model employs the large eddy simulation (LES) method to model the effect of small-scale turbulence. The velocity and vorticity fields around the pile are presented and discussed. The drag and inertial coefficients are calculated based on the numerical computation. The calculated coefficients are found to be in a reasonable range compared with the experimental data. Additional analyses are performed to assess the relative importance of drag and initial effects, which could be quantified by the force-related Keulegan and Carpenter (KC) number: KCf=UT/(4πL). Here U is the maximum fluid particle velocity, T the wave period and L the length of structure aligned with the wave propagation direction. For small KCf, the effective drag coefficient is proportional to 1/KCf, provided the wavelength is much longer than the structural length. When wavelength is comparable to the structure dimension, the effective drag coefficient would be reduced significantly due the cancellation of forces, which has been demonstrated by numerical results.

Numerical Investigation of Turbulent Jet Under Random Waves

When wastewater is discharged into a large water body, e.g. lake, estuary or ocean, it will form a turbulent jet which is often under the influence of tides and waves. Although the jet motion in stagnant ambient as well as in steady or quasi-steady flows has been extensively studied in previous works, the knowledge of jet motion in un-steady flow such as waves is rather limited. In real situation, waves are random and have various frequencies. In order to obtain a more accurate assessment of the environmental impact due to wastewater discharge, it is essential to investigate the effect of random waves on jet behaviours.