Large-eddy simulation of solitary wave and bridge pier interaction: Model development and validation*

We employ our in-house VFS-Geophysics model to study the interaction of a solitary wave and bridge piers. The turbulence and free-surface are modeled using LES and level-set modules of the code, respectively. We developed a module to feed the incoming solitary wave into the computational domain. We do that by adjusting the free-surface and velocity field at the inlet section. Experimental tests were conducted to measure the free-surface and velocity field around the structures. The flume is 20m long, 1.5m wide and 1m deep and the bridge pier is a 0.5m wide cube. The cube was placed in two positions within the channel and the wave-cube interaction was studied in: case I in which the cube is situated at the sidewall and case II in which the cube is located in the middle of the channel.  Simulations are conducted using 3 grid resolutions ranging from 1 to 80 million grid cells. The numerical results are compared with the experimental observations showing that the computed results agree well with the measurements.