Modelling fully coupled fluid structure interaction using the computational toolkit Proteus

With the advance of computer technology and the increasing availability of high performance computing systems, the application of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models to real life engineering scenarios is becoming increasingly common. These numerical models typically solve the Navier-Stokes equations to simulate complex fluid processes without simplifying assumptions (e.g. 1D flow or depth integration). Clarification is sometime required on when such models provide practical insights and meaningful answers for a range of design problems associated with hydraulic and coastal structures for cost (time and expense) efficiencies. Recently, there has been an effort among the CFD development community to make these tools available to researchers and engineers through open-source platforms. These platforms contributed in decreasing the cost and increasing the flexibility of CFD models and enabled researchers and engineers working in coastal / hydraulic engineering consultancy industry to use them for addressing engineering applications. In this work, we present a relatively new open-source model, Proteus. This model aims to model complex processes which are key to reducing uncertainties in the design of hydraulic, coastal and offshore structures. These uncertainties include fully coupled wave-structure interaction, scour and sedimentation and multibody dynamics. The Proteus project was originally initiated as a platform for the numerical solution of the transport equations using the finite element method (FEM), along with a Python interface. The model is currently undergoing a rapid development phase, aiming not only to be sufficiently user-friendly but also efficient enough to be used by the general engineering community. In this work, we will briefly present the numerical methodology and then focus on presenting a portfolio of relevant case studies and validation cases including wave interaction with fixed and moving structures, including breakwaters and pipelines, modelling of moored and free floating bodies and validation results from the recent development of the sediment transport module