Numerical simulation of water entry of a symmetric/asymmetric wedge into waves using OpenFOAM

Abstract This paper presents a dynamic overset mesh based two-dimensional Numerical Wave Tank (NWT) model to study the water entry of a wedge into water waves in the process of offshore lowering. The NWT model is developed by integrating an incompressible multiphase flow solver on the dynamic overset mesh and a wave generation library in OpenFOAM. Numerical results of water entry of a symmetric/asymmetric wedge into the still water are presented to validate the NWT model by comparing with the published data. A series of numerical simulations of water entry of a symmetrical/asymmetrical wedge into regular waves are carried out, and the pressure coefficients, total force and free surface profiles are presented. Based on the parametric study on the water entry of a wedge into waves, the influence of wave amplitude, water entry velocity, and water entry location (wave peak, wave trough, cross point with the still water level) is analyzed. The numerical solutions provide the fundamentals for the further research on the safe control of water entry of payloads during the offshore installation.