CCP-WSI+ Collaborative Computational Project on Wave Structure Interaction +

4cf40233-2f6f-4ba7-8ce4-547cee372ffa

Active

EPSRC
EPSRC
EPSRC
EPSRC
EPSRC

£1,562,555

Sept. 30, 2020

Sept. 30, 2025

The proposed new CCP-WSI+ builds on the impact generated by the Collaborative Computational Project in Wave Structure Interaction (CCP-WSI) and extends it to connect together previously separate communities in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational structural mechanics (CSM). The new CCP-WSI+ collaboration builds on the NWT, will accelerate the development of Fully Coupled Wave Structure Interaction (FCWSI) modelling suitable for dealing with the latest challenges in offshore and coastal engineering.

Since being established in 2015, CCP-WSI has provided strategic leadership for the WSI community, and has been successful in generating impact in: Strategy setting, Contributions to knowledge, and Strategic software development and support. The existing CCP-WSI network has identified priorities for WSI code development through industry focus group workshops; it has advanced understanding of the applicability and reliability of WSI through an internationally recognised Blind Test series; and supported collaborative code development.

Acceleration of the offshore renewable energy sector and protection of coastal communities are strategic priorities for the UK and involve complex WSI challenges. Designers need computational tools that can deal with complex environmental load conditions and complex structures with confidence in their reliability and appropriate use. Computational tools are essential for design and assessment within these priority areas and there is a need for continued support of their development, appropriate utilisation and implementation to take advantage of recent advances in HPC architecture.

Both the CFD and CSM communities have similar challenges in needing computationally efficient code development suitable for simulations of design cases of greater and greater complexity and scale. Many different codes are available commercially and are developed in academia, but there remains considerable uncertainty in the reliability of their use in different applications and of independent qualitative measures of the quality of a simulation.

One of the novelties of this CCP is that in addition to considering the interface between fluids and structures from a computational perspective, we propose to bring together the two UK expert communities who are leading developments in those respective fields. The motivation is to develop FCWSI software, which couples the best in class CFD tools with the most recent innovations in computational solid mechanics. Due to the complexity of both fields, this would not be achievable without interdisciplinary collaboration and co-design of FCWSI software.

The CCP-WSI+ will bring the CFD and CSM communities together through a series of networking events and industry workshops designed to share good practice and exchange advances across disciplines and to develop the roadmap for the next generation of FCWSI tools. Training and workshops will support the co-creation of code coupling methodologies and libraries to support the range of CFD codes used in an open source environment for community use and to aid parallel implementation. The CCP-WSI+ will carry out a software audit on WSI codes and the data repository and website will be extended and enhanced with database visualisation and archiving to allow for contributions from the expanded community. Code developments will be supported through provision and management of the code repository, user support and training in software engineering and best practice for coupling and parallelisation.

By bringing together two communities of researchers who are independently investigating new computational methods for fluids and structures, we believe we will be able to co-design the next generation of FCWSI tools with realism both in the flow physics and the structural response, and in this way, will unlock new complex applications in ocean and coastal engineering

Potential Impact:
The proposed new CCP-WSI+ builds on the experience of the existing CCP-WSI in generating significant impact in the area of Wave-Structure Interaction through a range of different pathways. Extending the CCP-WSI to include CSM and CFD academic and industry experts will create greater impact and trigger the development of codes suitable for dealing with the latest challenges in offshore and coastal engineering, addressing complex WSI cases that could not be tackled if the two communities were to remain separated.

The envisaged impact will affect a wide range of participants through the extensive project partner list already signed up to the project, and will be generated by the proposed new CCP-WSI+ in three areas.

1. The CCP-WSI+ will provide leadership and strategy setting and will connect communities to enable them to tackle FCWSI challenges together.

2. Events proposed by the CCP-WSI+ will provide participants with effective networking activities to allow development and sharing of ideas and processes for validation by laboratory measurements and other available data. The training courses and workshops will also provide the skills to develop code within the shared opensource environment; to develop new code sustainably (software engineered and quality assured); to validate and present data to accepted standards; to validate and release new codes in wave structure interaction. The CCP-WSI+ focus group and road mapping exercise will provide a framework for innovation and the development of strategic software for WSI applications.

3. Dissemination of the research findings to potential end-users will be achieved through active participation in the CCP-WSI+ events and through publications in leading refereed international journals and conference proceedings related to the field. These will include journals and conferences specialising in high performance computing as well as mainstream fluid mechanics and structural mechanics journals.

4. Pathways to maximising the influence of the codes for WSI and maintaining software sustainability will be achieved through community code developments and CoSeC support for code coupling and parallelisation. The existing web site, data and code repository for CCP-WSI will be enhanced by adding new materials to include recent developments of CFD and CSM and code coupling, open source codes and information on workshop events for further code developments as well as for sharing and dissemination of research outcomes. Dissemination and promotion of the CCP-WSI+ to the wider community will be achieved through school workshops and public events.

5. The skills of professionals who attend the training courses, workshops, hackathons, blind tests and other proposed events by the network will be improved, both in development, use and exploitation of the software. Thus, the companies in relevant sectors will have better opportunities to employ suitably skilled professionals to tackle the challenges they face in engineering practice.