Windt, Christian and Davidson, Josh and Chandar, Dominic and Faedo, Nicolás and Ringwood, John (2020) Evaluation of the overset grid method for control studies of wave energy converters in OpenFOAM numerical wave tanks. Journal of Ocean Engineering and Marine Energy, 6. pp. 55-70. ISSN 2198-6444

Preview

Download (4MB) | Preview

Abstract

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based numerical wave tanks are valuable tools for the development and evaluation of energy maximising control systems for wave energy converters (WECs). However, the exaggerated body motion amplitude, which can be induced by the energy maximising control system, challenges the commonly applied mesh morphing method in CFD, due to the resulting mesh distortion and subsequent numerical instability. A more advanced mesh motion method is the overset grid method, which can inherently handle large amplitude body motions and has recently become freely available in the open source CFD software OpenFOAM. The overset grid method can, therefore, potentially eliminate the mesh distortion problem, hindering the simulation of WECs under controlled conditions. To evaluate the capability of the overset grid method for control studies of WECs in an OpenFOAM numerical wave tank, this paper presents a detailed comparison of the overset grid and mesh morphing methods, considering five test cases of increasing complexity. The test cases range from a static equilibrium test to the modelling of a controlled WEC, and good agreement is demonstrated between the two mesh motion methods, except for the case of the controlled WEC, when the device motion becomes large, and the mesh morphing simulation crashes. The runtimes for overset grid simulations are observed to be approximately double the time required for the mesh morphing simulations.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Funding: This paper is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 13/IA/1886. Josh Davidson is supported by the Higher Education Excellence Program of the Ministry of Human Capacities in the frame of Water science & Disaster Prevention research area of Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME FIKP-V´IZ). This is the accepted version of the published article, which is available at Windt, C., Davidson, J., Chandar, D.D.J. et al. Evaluation of the overset grid method for control studies of wave energy converters in OpenFOAM numerical wave tanks. J. Ocean Eng. Mar. Energy 6, 55–70 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40722-019-00156-5
Keywords:	Mesh motion; Overset grids; Numerical wave tank; Energy maximising control; OpenFOAM;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Research Institutes > Centre for Ocean Energy Research Faculty of Science and Engineering > Electronic Engineering
Item ID:	14327
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1007/s40722-019-00156-5
Depositing User:	Professor John Ringwood
Date Deposited:	13 Apr 2021 14:22
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of Ocean Engineering and Marine Energy
Publisher:	Springer
Refereed:	Yes
Funders:	Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), Higher Education Excellence Program of the Ministry of Human Capacities, Hungary
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

Repository Staff Only(login required)

Item control page

Downloads

Origin of downloads