Hydrodynamic interactions of nonlinear shallow-water waves with a fixed floating structure

An integrated numerical and analytical approximation for the numerical investigation of weakly nonlinear and weakly dispersive water waves propagating past a fixed two-dimensional floating body is presented in this dissertation. To simulate the wave propagation, the whole computational fluid domain is divided into two regions: the inner region under a structure and the outer region representing fluid domain outside of the region beneath the structure. In the outer region, the propagation of an incident nonlinear shallow-water wave and the subsequent wave reflection and transmission after interacting with a floating body are simulated by solving the governing equations using a modified Euler finite-difference numerical method. In the inner region, the analytical solutions of the velocity potentials are derived from the Laplace equation with kinematic boundary conditions. From the continuous velocity and velocity potential theories, the matching conditions satisfying the left and right interfaces are employed to connect the inner analytical solutions and outer numerical results. The open boundary conditions, and in some cases, the perfect reflecting boundary conditions are also described.;Experimental measurements have been carried out to verify the developed integrated numerical model. The performance of the present numerical model is demonstrated by various case studies, including free travel of solitary and cnoidal waves in a rectangular channel, nonlinear shallow-water waves (including solitary waves and cnoidal waves) reflection by a vertical wall and shallow-water waves interaction with a two-dimensional fixed floating body. Numerical results showing the comparisons with analytical solutions, experimental measurements and other published numerical results are presented and discussed.;In the cases of wave and floating structure interaction, the parametric studies are performed to examine the effects of incident wave height, incident cnoidal wave length, opening size and the length of a floating structure on selected physical variables including the maximum wave heights on the left and right interfaces, reflected and transmitted wave heights. Numerical results are also presented to show the effects of incident wave conditions, opening size and structure size on the vertical and total horizontal forces.