USE OF OPENFOAM® IN OFFSHORE ENGINEERING FOR WAVE-STRUCTURE AND WAVE-STRUCTURE-SOIL INTERACTIONS

The OpenFOAM®1 toolbox is an open source software package mainly aimed at CFD simulations. Nevertheless, the high abstraction and modularity of OpenFOAM enables its use as a generic tool for the numerical solution of any set of PDEs, and thus providing a huge potential for studying multi-physics problems. Recently, OpenFOAM has gained a great momentum in coastal and offshore engineering applications with the publication of the waves2Foam [1] toolbox for wave generation and absorption in OpenFOAM. In this paper, the new developments in OpenFOAM to construct a model system for studying wave-structure and wave-structure-soil interaction. The application of this model system to reliably study selected offshore structures in combination with physical model tests is also shown. Finally, recommendations and outlook for the use of OpenFOAM as a numerical wave tank are given.