Effect of Emerged Coastal Vegetation on Wave Attenuation Using Open Source CFD Tool: REEF3D

Abstract

Coastal vegetation is a soft solution for protecting the coast from the action of waves by attenuating the wave height and reducing the energy of the waves. Effect of wave height attenuation as a result of the presence of emerged coastal vegetation is studied numerically by resolving the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations. A three-dimensional numerical wave tank model is simulated using an open source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software REEF3D, and wave attenuation due to emerged coastal vegetation is determined. An artificial, rigid, emerged vegetation for a length of 2 m is developed in a numerical wave tank of REEF3D. The model is tested for regular waves of height 0.08, 0.12, and 0.16 m and wave periods of 1.8 and 2 s in a water depth of 0.40 and 0.45 m. The wave heights are measured at different locations along the vegetation meadow at 0.5 m intervals. The devolved numerical model is corroborated by comparing the obtained numerical results with the experimental results as reported by John et al. (Experimental investigation of wave attenuation through artificial vegetation meadow, ISH—HYDRO, [1]). The numerically obtained results are concurrent with the experimental results.