Ocean Wave Prediction Using Large-Scale Phase-Resolved Computations

A direct phase-resolved simulation tool for large-scale nonlinear ocean wavefield evolution has been developed. Unlike the phase-averaged model, it solves the primitive Euler equation and preserves the phase of the wavefield during its nonlinear evolution, therefore the detailed descriptions of the free surface and the kinematics of the wavefield are obtained. Using the direct simulation capability we investigate the statistics of the nonlinear wavefield including skewness and kurtosis. By comparing the results with the field measurements, our model is shown to be a reliable and useful tool capable of predicting the key characteristics of nonlinear ocean surface wavefields.