A numerical two dimensional wave basin has been developed in the framework of potential theory of nonlinear free surface flows. This general purpose computer code was used in this study to investigate systematically the interaction between a solitary wave and a fixed submerged circular cylinder. For a given submergence, different flow evolutions were encountered; their features are shown to depend on soliton amplitude and cylinder diameter. A quantitative study of hydrodynamic forces during the interaction is also presented.
The new generation of computer codes dedicated to the time-domain simulation of 2D non-linear free surface flows supply an easy tool to investigate fluid-structure interaction in a more realistic way than the former linearized theory. Such a software, named CANAL-1.2, has been in development since 1988 in our Laboratory in the general frame of nonlinear potential flow theory. Its main features are the following: the problem is formulated as an Initial Boundary Value Problem and solved by a Boundary Element Method coupled with a Runge-Kutta time marching procedure; Rankine sources and dipoles varying linearly on plane panels along the fluid domain boundaries, double node technique at the intersection of material boundaries with the free surface, Lagrangian evolution of the vertices at the free surface and Eulerian on the material surface, mirror image with respect to the horizontal sea bottom, Coupled Piston-Beach (CPB) outgoing wave absorber, user-defined two dimensional body at the free surface, or fully submerged, or both, etc.. The application presented herein concerns the interaction between a solitary wave and a fixed submerged circular cylinder. The soliton is generated by one of the ends of this "numerical wave basin" acting as a piston wavemaker, and is absorbed at the opposite end using the CPB wave-absorbing technique (Clement 1994).
