Discontinuous Galerkin methods for resolving non linear and dispersive near shore waves

Date

2014-05

Authors

Panda, Nishant

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Abstract

Near shore hydrodynamics has been an important research area dealing with coastal processes. The nearshore coastal region is the region between the shoreline and a fictive offshore limit which usually is defined as the limit where the depth becomes so large that it no longer influences the waves. This spatially limited but highly energetic zone is where water waves shoal, break and transmit energy to the shoreline and are governed by highly dispersive and non-linear effects. An accurate understanding of this phenomena is extremely useful, especially in emergency situations during hurricanes and storms. While the shallow water assumption is valid in regions where the characteristic wavelength exceeds a typical depth by orders of magnitude, Boussinesq-type equations have been used to model near-shore wave motion. Unfortunately these equations are complex system of coupled non-linear and dispersive differential equations that have made the developement of numerical approximations extremely challenging. In this dissertation, a local discontinuous Galerkin method for Boussinesq-Green Naghdi Equations is presented and validated against experimental results. Currently Green-Naghdi equations have many variants. We develop a numerical method in one horizontal dimension for the Green-Naghdi equations based on rotational characteristics in the velocity field. Stability criterion is also established for the linearized Green-Naghdi equations and a careful proof of linear stability of the numerical method is carried out. Verification is done against a linearized standing wave problem in flat bathymetry and h,p (denoted by K in this thesis) error rates are plotted. The numerical method is validated with experimental data from dispersive and non-linear test cases.

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