A numerical study for the effect of crest width, breaking parameter, and trunk permeability on hydrodynamics and flow behavior in the vicinity of rubble-mound, permeable, zero-freeboard breakwaters (ZFBs) is presented. The modified two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations for two-phase flows in porous media with a Smagorinsky model for the subgrid scale stresses were solved numerically. An immersed-boundary/level-set method was used. The numerical model was validated for the cases of wave propagation over a submerged impermeable trapezoidal bar and a low-crested permeable breakwater. Five cases of breakwaters were examined, and the main results are: (a) The size of the crest width, B, does not notably affect the wave reflection, vorticity, and currents in the seaward region of ZFBs, while wave transmission, currents in the leeward side, and mean overtopping discharge all decrease with increasing B. A non-monotonic behavior of the wave setup is also observed. (b) As the breaking parameter decreases, wave reflection, transmission, currents, mean overtopping discharge, and wave setup decrease. This observation is also verified by relevant empirical formulas. (c) As the ZFB trunk permeability decreases, an increase of the wave reflection, currents, wave setup, and a decrease of wave transmission and mean overtopping discharge is observed.
Despite the efforts of developers, investors and scientific community, the successful development of a competitive wave energy industry is proving elusive. One of the most important barriers against wave energy conversion is the efficiency of the devices compared with all the associated costs over the lifetime of an electricity generating plant, which translates into a very high Levelised Cost of Energy (LCoE) compared to that of other renewable energy technologies such as wind or solar photovoltaic. Furthermore, the industrial roll-out of Wave Energy Converter (WEC) devices is severely hampered by problems related to their reliability and operability, particularly in open waters and during harsh environmental sea conditions. WEC technologies in multi-purpose breakwaters—i.e., a structure that retains its primary function of providing sheltered conditions for port operations to develop and includes electricity production as an added co-benefit—appears to be a promising approach to improve cost-effectiveness in terms of energy production. This paper presents the proof of concept study of a novel hybrid-WEC (HWEC) that uses two well understood power generating technologies, air and water turbines, integrated in breakwaters, by means of a composite modelling approach. Preliminary results indicate: firstly, hybridisation is an adequate approach to harness the available energy most efficiently over a wide range of metocean conditions; secondly, the hydraulic performance of the breakwater improves; finally, no evident negative impacts in the overall structural stability specific to the integration were observed.
The two-dimensional flow induced by waves over submerged breakwaters of two different shapes is studied by means of a two-phase (water and air) Navier-Stokes equations solver. A time-splitting method is used for the temporal discretization, while the spatial discretization is based on the use of finite differences in a Cartesian staggered grid. The implementation of the boundary conditions at solid surfaces, as well as the treatment of the free surface is performed using the immersed boundary method where the breakwater, the seabed and the free surface are boundaries immersed in the numerical grid. The numerical model was applied on the propagation and breaking over a constant slope beach, as well as on the propagation and nonlinear transformation of waves over two types of submerged breakwaters, i.e., trapezoidal and composite (with berm in the up-slope side). The results of the numerical model reveal that the presence of the berm reduces the transmission coefficient and this reduction increases with the decrease of the berm depth of submergence.
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