SPH numerical modeling of wave–perforated breakwater interaction

•Development of an SPH model to simulate thin solid bodies using a multi-node approach.•Model validation in hydrostatic and hydrodynamic conditions.•Test cases dealing with the analysis of wave pressures and reflection coefficient at perforated breakwaters.

This paper proposes a 2D diffusive weakly-compressible Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) model to simulate wave loads and hydraulic characteristics at perforated breakwaters. The solid boundary technique of the fixed ghost particles (Marrone et al., 2011a), based on interpolation nodes located within the fluid domain, is here extended to a multi-node approach. The proposed modeling is defined by the association of more interpolation nodes to a single solid particle in order to allow interaction with fluid particles located at different positions in the computational domain. The present enforcing is introduced with the aim of overcoming disadvantages in terms of CPU time for heavy SPH simulations in which the choice of the initial spatial resolution of the model is driven by the presence of thin structures immersed in a fluid mass such as the slotted wall of breakwaters.The present solid boundary treatment is firstly validated for a still water tank characterized by two different static levels and for a green water overtopping a fixed deck. Successively, the SPH model is applied to simulate the interaction between regular waves with fully and partially perforated breakwaters. Numerical results are successfully compared with experimental data in terms of dynamic pressures acting on the body profiles of the considered breakwater and wave reflection.