[wouterremmerie]

Hi all!

I'm working on a case (can't share too much, so I'll keep it abstract enough) where I want to analyse the effect of the wind on the water leven in a basin.

Basin could be for example 50x50m, with just 100mm of water in it (with the basin 200mm deep). Then, the wind blows parallel to the surface, "dragging" the water along, causing a pile-up at the far end of the basin.

At least that is what happens in reality, now I want to model it.

My approach was the following:
- use interFoam
- use blockMesh to generate a mesh which has very low thickness cells, because I'm mainly interested in what happens vertically (I want to see small changes in water level) and I don't expect much changes in the horizontal plane. --> cells with for example 1000x1000x10mm size (with 10mm being the height).
- the floor is not entirely flat, so these cells have a slight angle;
- build a "wind tunnel" around the setup, using symmetry at the sides and the top
- wind speed given at the inlet, open patch at the outlet.

First results show that there is indeed interaction between wind and water, but when plotting the water surface (iso surface for alpha = 0.5), the water level actually goes down towards the end of the basin. also, there is quite some difference between the 0.01 and 0.99 alpha levels (quite a lot of mixing between water and air?). The 0.01 level actually does rise towards the end of the basin. But which one should I believe?

Do I need more detail in the mesh?
Do I need to post-process differently (different alpha values)?
Do I need to use a different solver?
...


Many thanks for any inputs!

Regards,

Wouter.