Ports & Coastal Applications

Living shorelines are nature-inspired solutions that can help reduce wave energy and resulting erosion in coastal areas. They have an added benefit of promoting biodiversity, often acting as artificial oyster reefs! FLOW-3D HYDRO is a great tool to evaluate wave energy reduction performance of such structures. This simulation is showcasing the WAD® product from Living Shoreline Inc. We see the wave attenuation, first with ray-tracing, but also with a colormap showing flow depth. As we see with the graph, there’s 65% wave height reduction after the reef.

This FLOW-3D HYDRO simulation of a lock in the Champlain canal demonstrates the downstream flushing strategy designed to keep invasive species out of the lock. This animation was created with FLOW-3D POST, and features 2D slices to show the velocity field downstream of the lock. Courtesy of AnchorQEA.

FLOW-3D HYDRO lets you export hydrodynamic forces acting on individual objects within your model. In this example of a wave impacting a walkway and flood wall, the force on the wall object is shown in the second part of the video. Similar output could also have been obtained for the wave forces acting on the walkway. FLOW-3D HYDRO also has a number of built-in boundary options to handle wave boundaries, such as linear, Stokes, Stokes and cnoidal wave, solitary, or random waves.

This simulation, available as a pre-loaded example in FLOW-3D HYDRO, shows the wave loading on a group of piers. The model is configured to output the force calculations for each pier. FLOW-3D HYDRO can be used to accurately model the hydrodynamic forces on piers and other coastal structures, as well as free-floating and moored structures, under a variety of wave conditions.

This FLOW-3D HYDRO simulation of a wave energy converter uses a two-fluid model to simulate air flow through a simple turbine. The free surface 2-fluid VOF workspace template allows for faster, more consistent model setup.

FLOW-3D HYDRO simulation of a floating point absorber wave energy converter.

This FLOW-3D HYDRO model illustrates the benefits of natural vegetation, such as mangroves, as a coastal defense mechanism. In the top model, the incoming waves run up on an unprotected beach slope and the total volume of fluid that overtops the beach is quantified. In the other run, a 3D object representing mangroves is added at the base of the beach slope. The mangroves help to dissipate the wave’s energy and reduce the overtopping volume.

CFD simulation showing different types of waves that can be set as boundary conditions in FLOW-3D HYDRO, which allows users to generate waves of varying complexity, from simple solitary and linear waves to Pierson-Moskowitz and JONSWAP spectrum-based waves.

A FLOW-3D HYDRO model of waves passing over a series of simple moving objects represents flow through a submerged, flexible coastal canopy.

Wave loading on critical coastal infrastructure such as wharves and breakwaters can be evaluated using FLOW-3D HYDRO. In this simulation, waves entering the domain interact with the wharf piles as well as the sediment bed, eroding the bed as they break near the shore.

In this example, the evolution of free-surface elevation has been simulated at the Port of Imwon in Korea during a tsunami. FLOW-3D HYDRO also accurately calculates a tsunami-induced vortic flow generation in the center of the harbor. Studying these vortices can be helpful in understanding the impact of a tsunami depending on the size and the shape of the port and the breakwater layouts.

In addition to fixed pile structures, FLOW-3D HYDRO can be used to simulate the forces on floating structures, such as the dock shown here. The movement of the dock is stabilized using the mooring lines model, and the dynamics of the dock as a result of a steadily increasing water level can be seen in this video.

In this example, FLOW-3D HYDRO is used to simulate the operation of a floating barrier comprised of mooring lines floating buoys. As a flood wave propagates within the channel, the mooring lines are stretched and enter a state of tension, pulling the buoys downstream until the mooring lines hold them back. Such barriers are often used to constrain oil, debris and silt.