CFD Simulations of Roll Motion of a Floating Ice Block in Waves using REEF3D

Abstract

Floating ice blocks in waves are generally seen in managed ice and in marginal ice zones. Detailed investigations into the hydrodynamics of a floating ice block provides insight into the interaction of floating ice with arctic marine structures. In this paper, the open-source CFD code REEF3D is used to simulate the motion of a floating ice block in a wave field. The model is validated by simulating the roll motion of a rectangular barge and comparing the numerical results with experimental data. The numerical model uses the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations to solve the fluid flow problem. A sharp representation of the free surface is obtained using the level set method. The motion of the floating ice is calculated using the equations for six degrees of freedom motion. The floating object is immersed into the numerical grid and the solid-fluid boundary is represented with the ghost cell immersed boundary method. This method avoids re-meshing and provides increased numerical stability. Computational performance of the numerical model is improved by parallel processing using the MPI library.