391 / 2024-03-10 16:43:49

Numerical Simulations of Wave Overwash on Modular Floating Platforms with Mooring using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics

Floating Solar Farms, Floating Structure Interactions, Wave Overwash

Subtheme 8: Estuarine and Coastal Engineering > Topic 3: Fluid-Structure-Seabed Interaction

With increasing needs of renewable energy, the installation of large floating solar farms (FSF) in coastal and offshore areas have drawn more attention in recent years. The modular platform of large FSFs typically involves tens of thousands of interconnected small-size modules, and significant energy dissipation can occur during the wave interaction due to the numerous connections. Hence, a hydro-viscoelastic analysis is needed for the structural assessment of the floating platform which extends the classical hydro-elastic analysis by including the damping for internal energy dissipation by the platform. However, the hydro-viscoelastic analysis becomes much more challenging when overtopping occurs during the wave interaction with overwash appearing on top of the platform surface. In this study, the large floating platform is idealised as a continuous cover, and a new numerical scheme is derived whereby the floating cover is represented through discretization into elementary rigid sections interconnected via rotational hinges with damping with the hinge characteristics matching the viscoelastic properties of the cover. Subsequently, Smooth Particles Hydrodynamic simulations are carried out to simulate the wave-structure interactions. For validation, experiments of wave interaction with a free viscoelastic floating cover with and without wave overtopping were performed. The results show that SPH can predict well the wave reflection and transmission by the floating cover including with transient overwash on top, as well as the threshold of incident wave steepness that initiates the wave overtopping. The validated model is further applied to investigate the effects of mooring methods on the motion and displacement of the viscoelastic floating cover. Overall, the current study demonstrates for the first time that SPH can be an assessment tool for complex wave interactions with large floating solar farms including overtopping.