A NEW FREE SURFACE MESH TRACING METHOD

Free surface flow problems involving large free motions are analysed using finite element techniques. In solving these problems an Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian(ALE)kinematical description of the fluid domain is adopted, in which the nodal points can be displaced independently of the fluid motion. A new mesh tracing method is proposed in this paper. To confirm the effectiveness of the new method, solitary wave propagation is analysed and the numerical results are compared with the analytical results. The behaviour of the viscous fluid flow with a free surface is expressed by the unsteady Navier-Stokes equation. For numerical integration in time the velocity correction fractional step method is used.