LAUSR

Abstract This paper aims to model the hydrodynamic forces on grids of perforated flat plates undergoing forced motions at three scales, namely steady (current), and combined low (wave) frequency and high (structural) frequency oscillatory motion. The intended application is the design and re-assessment of dynamically-responding offshore platforms. A recent set of experimental results by Santo et al. (2018c) is taken as the reference for comparison with the numerical predictions. A block of porous cells is used as a proxy to the grids of perforated plates in the numerical simulation, but with comparable resistance and added mass represented by equivalent Morison drag and inertia stresses both uniformly distributed over the porous cells. Both stresses are characterised by empirical force coefficients, F and C m ′ , which correspond to Morison drag, C d and inertia, C m coefficients, respectively. Using these two adjustable empirical parameters, the simulated forces compare reasonably well with the measured hydrodynamic forces on the grids, both in terms of peak forces as well as the complete force–time histories for most of the flow conditions tested in the experiments. This is particularly true when the amplitude of wave velocity is larger than that of current velocity, a representation of large waves in a small current which is realistic for the harsh ocean environment. The porous block model is capable of capturing the global large-scale wake structures, which are responsible for the reduction in fluid flow velocity and associated forces on a structure. The simulated forces however only exhibit slight force asymmetry, unlike the measured forces, because the local fine-scale wake structures are not represented in the numerical modelling. For the scale of the experiments used for the comparison, the contribution from these small-scale wake structures to the global hydrodynamic forces can be quite significant, in particular when the amplitude of wave velocity is comparable to that of current velocity. Overall, this paper demonstrates the versatility of the porous block modelling approach in capturing most of the dominant flow physics and reproducing almost all the experimental results. The generality of the approach allows straightforward extension to wider range of flow conditions including three-dimensional flow.