Viscous-Flow-Based Analysis of Wave Near-Trapped in a Four-Cylinder Structure

The hydrodynamic analysis of multi-floating bodies is important and widely used in marine engineering. In this study, we systematically simulated the wave diffraction problem of a fixed vertical four-cylinder structure in regular waves in the time domain in a viscous numerical wave tank. The hydrodynamic interaction of waves with a bottom-mounted structure consisting of four vertical cylinders arranged at the corners of a square shows a complicated interference phenomenon. In this paper, we illustrate and analyze the run-up around the structure and the corresponding wave forces. To investigate the viscous effect on the near-trapping phenomenon, we pay particular attention to investigating the waves near-trapped inside the four-cylinder structure, and make a comparative study of the viscous- and inviscid-flow solutions with the experimental measurements. The results show that the maximum wave elevation occurs on the inner side of the leeside cylinder, and that the wave elevations on the outer side of the cylinders are lower than those on the inner side. We can conclude that viscosity has an obvious damping effect on wave elevations inside the structure. The cylinders show a tendency to drift apart from each other when the near-trapping phenomenon occurs.