DHI rolls out new wave simulation tool

DHI scientist has developed a new simulation method for free surface flows, applicable to a wide range of engineering areas, including wave energy converter design.

Johan Roenby, from the Department of Ports and Offshore Technology at DHI, has led the project ‘Breaking the Code of Breaking Waves’ with the aim of inventing new improved computer algorithms for simulating complex water surfaces.

The project produced a novel water surface simulation algorithm, dubbed isoAdvector, which produces accurate solutions by rethinking the numerical representation of the surface motion and exploiting a number of geometric tricks, according to DHI.

The new algorithm is implemented in the open source CFD coding framework, OpenFOAM, and is released as open source, meaning that anyone can download, use, and modify it to fit their needs.

Johan Roenby said: “One of the main advantages of isoAdvector is its ability to move water surfaces across computational meshes, where the cells are not just cubes, but may have any shape. The ability to work with general cell shapes makes the tedious process of generating meshes around complex structures such as offshore wind turbine foundations or wave energy converters much faster and easier for the engineers. This in turn makes the whole simulation process cheaper and more agile.”

The project was conducted in close collaboration with Associate Professor Henrik Bredmose from DTU Wind Energy, and Professor Hrvoje Jasak from Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, University of Zagreb.

Headquartered in Denmark, DHI is an independent research and consultancy organisation operating worldwide.