Simulation of steep focused wave interaction with a fixed cylinder using fully nonlinear potential flow and navier-stokes solvers

© 2020 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE). Cylindrical mono-pile foundations are commonly applied in coastal and offshore structures at intermediate water depth, where waves may contain highly nonlinear components. The study of the interactions between nonlinear waves and cylindrical foundations is of importance in engineering practice for the evaluation of their stability and survivability in extreme environmental conditions. In this paper, a newly developed finite volume free surface solver based on the fully nonlinear potential flow (FNPF) theory and the existing Navier-Stokes (NS) multi-phase flow solver in OpenFOAM are adopted for the comparative study of the focused wave impact on a fixed cylinder. Whenever possible, numerical results from the two models are compared to each other and with the available experimental measurements to demonstrate their accuracy, efficiency and applicability for the particular flow problem