SMOOTHED PARTICLE HYDRODYNAMICS SIMULATIONS OF MODEL-SCALE TSUNAMI WAVES

  • Ruaa Wana

Student thesis: PhD

Abstract

Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) is a meshfree, Lagrangian, particle method. It was first invented to solve astrophysical problems, but has since been developed and used to model a wide variety of fluid flows. Also, it is particularly well suited to simulating flow problems that have large deformations or contain free surfaces. This thesis describes in detail the SPH method and its application to single phase models of flows. Fortran code has been written to implement the method. To validate and establish SPH parameters to use, the SPH method has been used in different flow simulations, in particular, lid-driven cavity flow, a still water tank and dam break flow. In these flows, we considered the effect of boundary conditions and/or initial particle spacing on the solution obtained. The main focus of this study is to use SPH to simulate of model-scale tsunami waves generated by fault rupture, with the experiments carried out in the University of Plymouth COAST laboratory. Simulations were carried out, to predict tsunami waves, that were generated by using either a flat uplift plate or an inclined uplift plate. There was a small sloped ramp in the experimental geometry just downstream of the uplift plate and in order to obtain an accurate and stable pressure solution, required careful consideration of the boundary conditions on both the slope and at the internal corner in the flow. The SPH predictions of the free surface elevation are, in general, in good agreement with the experimental data.
Date of Award2020
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • University of Plymouth
SupervisorJason Hughes (Other Supervisor)

Keywords

  • Smoothed Particles Hydrodynamics
  • Free Surface Flow
  • Tsunami Wave

Cite this

'