Analysis of the influence of bathymetry on regular representative and realistic irregular waves generated through the WaveMIMO methodology

Due to the exponential growth in energy consumption and the possibility of using the energy contained in sea waves, the present study analyzes the influence of wave channel bathymetry on the propagation of representative regular and realistic irregular waves that describe the sea state occurring on the coast of Tramandaí city, state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The numerical simulations carried out in this study used the Computational Fluid Dynamics software ANSYS Fluent, based on the Finite Volume Method. The treatment of the water-air interface was performed with the Volume of Fluid multiphase model. To generate irregular waves, the WaveMIMO methodology was applied, which enables the numerical simulation of sea states with realistic characteristics. Therefore, in this paper, data from the TOMAWAC spectral model was processed, aiming to obtain orbital velocity profiles of wave propagation and their subsequent imposition as boundary conditions in the wave channel simulated in Fluent. The generation of representative regular waves and realistic irregular waves was analyzed, considering the wave channel with a horizontal bottom and applying bathymetry. Analysis of the results indicates that the use of bathymetry allows a slight improvement in the accuracy of numerical simulations of wave generation.