Effect of solitary wave on viscous-fluid flow in bottom cavity

This study mainly focuses on the interaction between a solitary wave and a bottom cavity. Vortex formation in cavities with different aspect ratios and different Reynolds numbers is considered, revealing the effects on flow patterns, primary vortex trajectories, and transport of imagined particles by the fluid in the cavity. Both numerical and experimental approaches are employed to analyze the vortex motions in cavity flow. The numerical model is based on stream function-vorticity formulations, and the transient body-fit grid combined with an overset grid is adopted for grid systems. To increase computing efficiency, the finite difference method for stream function and the finite analytic method for vorticity are combined to calculate the flow field equations. Part of the experiment uses particle tracing to visualize cavity flow. The numerical results are consistent with the experimental observations and measurements. In the computational case, the Reynolds number is defined from the undisturbed water depth and the linear-long-wave celerity. Three values of Re (Re = 80,000, 8000, and 800) are mainly studied to distinguish their behavior. For lower Re (e.g., Re = 800), a smaller fraction of particles are removed from a wide cavity (e.g., width larger or equal to twice the water depth) For this type of cavity, independent of Re, more particles are removed from the upper right of the cavity than from the upper left area.