This paper presents the development of a Numerical Wave Tank (NWT) for the Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) wave basin using a state-of-the-art open source CFD model waves2FOAM solver which inherits its basic structure from OpenFOAM and utilizes the volume of fluid (VoF) method in capturing the interface. A correlation study was performed by comparing the virtual wave properties side-by-side to the physical waves generated in the UTP wave basin under the identical geometry (full scale) and input conditions. Moreover, the validation study of horizontal wave loading across a slender cylinder was carried out by correlating the OpenFOAM force measurements to the semi empirical Morison’s equation outputs. Mesh fineness study incorporating an open source meshing tool Salome is included as a necessity to determine the optimal mesh density for the simulation with respect to the computational time and accuracy. In this study, near identical regular waves behavior has been observed and recorded between the experimental results and the OpenFOAM measurements. Furthermore, good agreement was achieved between the horizontal force estimated via Morison’s equation and simulated horizontal force measured by OpenFOAM. The results demonstrate the viability of utilizing open source software in future research concerning fluid dynamics and fluid-structure interaction.

Keywords—Numerical Wave Tank (NWT); OpenFOAM; Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS); Regular Waves; Fluid-structure Interaction; Wave Basin; waves2FOAM; Volume of Fluid (VoF)