TWO-DIMENSIONAL NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF FLOW AROUND RECTANGULAR STRUCTURES WITH DIFFERENT ASPECT RATIOS

摘要

Many marine and offshore structures have structural components with square or rectangular cross-sections, e.g., columns of semi-submersibles and tension-leg platforms, heave damping plates of truss spar platforms as well as ship stabilizers. Two-dimensional flow normal to the longer edge of rectangles with different aspect ratios, i.e. from a square to a thin plate, is investigated numerically in the paper. The simulations are carried out at Re=21400 (based on the free stream velocity and the height of the rectangular cross-section) by solving the Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) equations with the k-ω SST (Shear Stress Transport) turbulence model by using OpenFOAM. The hydrodynamic results are compared with published experimental data and numerical results. The paper also includes further investigations on the effect of different aspect ratios.