Evaluating and Optimising the Overset Solver in OpenFOAM for Complex Wave-Structure Interaction Problems

Rai, Ranjodh S, Qian, Ling ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9716-2342, Ma, Zhihua ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2426-3038 and Bai, Wei ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3537-207X (2024) Evaluating and Optimising the Overset Solver in OpenFOAM for Complex Wave-Structure Interaction Problems. In: ASME 2024 43rd International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering, 9 June 2024 - 14 June 2024, Singapore.

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Abstract

In this paper, the latest overset mesh solver, updated in ESI-OpenCFD OpenFOAM v2212, is evaluated for two complex wave-structure interaction problems; namely, fifth-order Stokes wave interaction with a 2-D T-shaped floating body and focused wave interaction with a 3-D hemispherical wave energy converter. In particular, it is established whether the updated hole-cutting procedure improves the accuracy of solutions and reduces computational time. It is found that the accuracy of solutions for both problems are improved, but only for the T-shaped floating body case is this down to the new hole-cutting procedure. No discernible difference is made to the computational efficiency for either case. In addition, the primary bottleneck of the overset procedure in terms of efficiency is also identified with a vision of improving the overall efficiency of the solver and reducing computational time for modelling complex wave-structure interaction problems. It is found that the ‘markDonors’ function, called during the overset grid assembly procedure, is the primary bottleneck in efficiency, with the function’s parallel efficiency and scalability also shown to be poor.