Abstract
This paper investigates fluid and floating object interaction using a novel adaption of the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method. This problem is significant to reducing the difficulties of cost-effective designs of wave energy converters, offshore and coastal structures. In particular, this paper investigates water impact, hydrodynamic forces, fluid motions and movement of the object in typical cases of object entry and exit from still water and movement within a surf zone. Conventional grid based models, such as FEM and FDM, are required to generate or adapt the inbuilt mesh at each timestep to conform to the movement of the free surface and the object. SPH is a Lagrangian particle method which does not require a grid, therefore, it is a robust method with which to tackle the problem. The water impact pressure prediction, traditionally considered one of the weaker facets of SPH, shows good agreement with published experimental and numerical results. The hydrodynamic forces exerted on the object, and hence the movement of the object itself, are well predicted. The velocity field of the fluid domain is also captured well. The diversity and results of the case studies provide a good foundation to evaluate the accuracy and stability of using SPH to model the interaction between floating objects and free surface flow, and subsequently to evaluate wave energy capture devices.