Application of URANS-VOF models in hydrodynamic study of oscillating water column

Abstract

This paper presents a comparison of two URANS models based on the VoF approach, FLUENT (Fluent, 2006) and IH2VOF (Lara et al., 2011), to perform a detaiied analysis of the hydrodynamic phenomena outside and inside an open Oscillating Water Coiumn (OWC) device. This analysis is important to determine the ability of each solver in accurate modelling the complex non-linear phenomena which occur in the wave-fluid-structure interaction, in order to use it in the deveiopment of an innovative integrated tool at prototype scale. Numerical results of free surface elevation, oscillating free surface inside the water chamber, amplification factor and phase lag are analysed and compared with experimental data for several incident wave conditions. For an OWC with a fuliy open chamber, good agreement was achieved between experimental data and numerical results obtained with two modeis with different numerical methodologies.