Establishment and validation of a versatile SPH-based numerical tank for generating wave-alone, current-alone, and wave-current-combined fields

Gravity wave generation, propagation, evolution, and interaction with a current play a key role in coastal and ocean engineering design. Within the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) framework, this paper presents a versatile meshless numerical tank capable of generating wave-alone, current-alone, and wave–current-combined fields. To this end, the upstream region of the numerical tank is modeled by a so-called Lagrangian particle injector that directly enforces Dirichlet source conditions to generate a desired field. Furthermore, the downstream region of the numerical tank is tackled by deploying a sponge layer in conjunction with an outflow layer to maintain flow consistency during a simulation. Finally, a series of benchmarks and applications are performed to verify and validate the accuracy, convergence, and applicability of the present numerical tank in solving marine hydrodynamics. It is demonstrated that the newly-developed numerical tank is capable of generating accurately different fields widely used in practice in an easy-to-implement manner and hence shows great potential to be a promising alternative to those traditional SPH-based numerical tanks employing a moveable paddle.