Abstract:
Nowadays, the use of RANS-based models for simulating numerical wave flumes and studying coastal engineering structures is common and allows investigating accurately phenomena that occur in current/wavestructure interactions. Comprehension of energy transformations in these processes can support designers tooptimize the system. In this study, a methodology to evaluate the terms of the energy rate balance in coastal
engineering problems is developed. The methodology is applied to the propagation of regular waves in numerical
wave flumes, onshore oscillating water column wave energy converter integrated into a vertical breakwater, and
two types of rubble-mound breakwaters. The direct determination of the energy rate due to viscous and urbulence
losses and the porous resistance in rubble-mound breakwaters are carried out by time integration inside
the computational domain. Besides, the reflected and transmitted energy rates in the flume are calculated by
means of this methodology, instead of the standard gauge methods, commonly used in physical and numerical
flumes. Complementary, studies may be carried out for random incident waves and the methodology can be
applied to 3D wave tanks.
