Numerical Ice Tank

In naval architecture and ocean engineering, efficient computational approaches based on accurate and robust modeling of viscous free surface flows and fluid-structure interactions are highly appreciated. This especially holds for the field of ship-fluid-ice interactions, where experimental studies are unwieldy, difficult to scale and typically very expensive. For this reason, we present a novel, very efficient numerical ice tank on the basis of the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) for the viscous and turbulent flow field computations. The ice floe dynamics are modeled with the Open Dynamics Engine, considering effects of inertia, collisions and friction in floating and colliding multi-body systems of complex geometry. In the video below elbe is applied to a full-scale ship-ice interaction problem, involving an ice-going ship and several ice floes. The hull of an ice-going ship is used and subjected to an incoming flow. The ice floes then are injected upstream of the ship and are advected towards the ship, where they finally start interacting with the hull.

Numerical simulation of ship-ice interactions with elbe

For more details on the ProEis research project, see the FDS homepage.

M.Sc. Dennis Mierke
M.Sc. Martin Gehrke
Dr.-Ing. Christian Janßen
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Rung