Application of direct boundary integration method to wave diffraction by submerged bodies

Abstract

The diffraction of waves due to the presence of submerged objects in the ocean environment is solved by a relatively novel approach involving the direct boundary integration method (DBIM). Firstly, the method is tested for the case of a submerged circular cylinder and compared with the conventional boundary element method (BEM) results. The agreement between the results using this method and the BEM is good. Further, the DBIM has been applied to the case of a submerged horizontal plate for which the horizontal and vertical force coefficients are computed and compared with a semi-analytical solution using the matched eigenfunction expansion method (EFEM). It is found that the computed results using DBIM are in good agreement with those of EFEM and BEM. Further, the DBIM is found to be computationally more efficient than the BEM for the water wave diffraction problems presented in this paper.