Simulation of a laboratory-scale experiment for wave propagation and interaction with a structure of undersea topography near a nuclear power plant using a divergence-free SPH

The Divergence-Free SPH (DFSPH) method is a recently proposed novel incompressible Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method. The DFSPH method enforces incompressibility via two iterative solvers: the Divergence-Free (DF) solver and the Constant-Density (CD) solver. In this study, the DFSPH algorithm is implemented into the SOPHIA Plus framework to simulate a set of wave propagation under the same geometry and conditions of a laboratory-scale experiment. The experiments are conducted for wave propagation and interaction with a structure of scaled-down undersea topography near the Kori nuclear power plant in South Korea. This study compares the free surface propagation and the wave height with the experimental measurements for three test cases: low/medium/high frequency waves. Overall, the simulation shows good agreement with the experiment both qualitatively and quantitatively. However, according to the sensitivity study, more realistic water splashing behaviors are captured as the particle size is reduced. The predicted wave heights at three different locations are also in fairly good agreement with the experimental measurement. Slight differences are observed after the wave collides with the structure because of the low energy dissipation in the simulation. However, the differences are not significant.