A coastal ocean model with subgrid approximation

A wide variety of coastal ocean models exist, each having attributes that reflect specific application areas. The model presented here is based on finite element methods with unstructured grids containing triangular and quadrilateral elements. The model optimizes robustness, accuracy, and efficiency by using semi-implicit methods in time in order to remove the most restrictive stability constraints, by using a semi-Lagrangian advection approximation to remove Courant number constraints, and by solving a wave equation at the discrete level for enhanced efficiency. An added feature is the approximation of the effects of subgrid objects. Here, the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations and the incompressibility constraint are volume averaged over one or more computational cells. This procedure gives rise to new terms which must be approximated as a closure problem. A study of tidal power generation is presented as an example of this method. A problem that arises is specifying appropriate thrust and power coefficients for the volume averaged velocity when they are usually referenced to free stream velocity. A new contribution here is the evaluation of three approaches to this problem: an iteration procedure and two mapping formulations. All three sets of results for thrust (form drag) and power are in reasonable agreement.