Theoretical Recommendations and Validation for the Generation of Realistic Irregular Waves Through the WaveMIMO Methodology

Irregular wave generation in numerical simulations is critical for accurately modeling realistic sea conditions, which is essential in coastal and offshore engineering applications, such as for wave energy conversion. Therefore, this study presents theoretical recommendations for generating realistic irregular waves using the WaveMIMO methodology and validates its accuracy against experimental data. For the parameters investigation, spectral data are processed to obtain orbital velocity profiles of wave propagation, which are imposed as boundary conditions (BCs) in a numerical wave channel. The simulations were conducted using the ANSYS-Fluent 2024 R2 software, which employs the multiphase volume of fluid (VOF) model to treat the interface between phases. Seeking theoretical recommendations for the application of this methodology, the present study investigated the discretization of the region where the prescribed velocity BC is imposed, the mesh sensitivity in the free surface region, the time step used, and the location of the velocity vector in each segment of the prescribed velocity BC imposition region. The results obtained were compared with realistic sea state data obtained from the TOMAWAC spectral model, referring to the municipalities of Rio Grande and Tramandaí, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The results indicated that, compared to recommendations from the previous literature, the recommended configuration improved wave generation accuracy by 7–8% for Rio Grande and 2–3% for Tramandaí. Finally, the WaveMIMO methodology and its theorical recommendations were validated against experimental data found in the literature, reaching an excellent agreement.