Experimental and numerical analysis of energy and hydrodynamic pressure in channel flow induced through a water wave generation system

Abstract

Wave energy has been gaining increasing significance among renewable energy sources due to its continuity and predictable nature. In engineering applications within this field, it is essential to evaluate not only free surface behavior but also subsurface flow structures, pressure gradients (∇𝑃𝑃s), and acceleration fields. In the experimental setup, wave surface elevations generated by a hydraulic servo system (HSS) with a stroke length of 50 mm and a frequency of 1 Hz were recorded in real-time at 0.1 ms intervals using a wave probe. Additionally, the measured free surface wave behavior was compared with numerical results obtained through three-dimensional (3D) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. The numerical simulations were conducted using the volume of fluid (VOF) method and the SST k-ω turbulence model based on the Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) approach in ANSYS Fluent 2023 R2. The inlet boundary conditions were defined as time-dependent through a user-defined function (UDF). A convergence rate of approximately 94% was achieved between the experimental and numerical free surface elevations. Velocity fields (m/s), static and dynamic pressure contours (Pa), and pressure gradient (𝛻𝛻𝛻𝛻) (Pa/m) distributions obtained from the numerical model were analyzed in detail. The findings indicate the formation of energy accumulation zones during wave crest-trough transitions and reveal increased load transfers associated with subsurface load distributions and acceleration.