Coupling of CFD model and FVCOM to predict small-scale coastal flows

In order to accurately simulate small-scale coastal ocean phenomena, we propose to couple a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model with the Unstructured Grid Finite Volume Coastal Ocean Model (FVCOM). The CFD model resolves small-scale flows, the FVCOM predicts large-scale background currents, and the resulting hybrid system is able to capture flow phenomena with spatial scales from centimeters to hundreds of kilometers. The coupling is two-way and realized using domain decomposition with aid of Chimera overset grids. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the feasibility and performance of the proposed hybrid approach.