Numerical simulations of regular waves in an ocean basin

Ocean basin facility experiments have great importance to the design of offshore structures. Because of the continuous advances in computational fields, the use of numerical simulations to assist the planning of the experiments or to complement the experimental results has become common. Thus, the comparison between numerical and experimental data is an important task to support the developments of the application of numerical models in an ocean basin. This paper presents a numerical study of the generation and propagation of regular waves in the ocean basin of the Ocean Technology Laboratory (LabOceano/COPPE) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The homogeneous multiphase model implemented in the ANSYS-CFX code was used. A cross section of the basin has been represented. The results were compared with wave theory and experimental data that was obtained in the ocean basin of interest. Regular waves with steepness < 0.035 and period from 1.25 to 3.00 s were simulated. The behaviour of the free surface elevation along the basin and over time has been evaluated. Comparisons between numerical and experimental results have indicated some issues which should be taken into consideration when applying a numerical code to this kind of application. © 2015, Sociedade Brasileira de Engenharia Naval.