[jbcourt]

Hi,
I'm trying to simulate a bottom-hinged flap-type wave energy device in a numerical wave tank, and my approach to mesh motion has been to enclose the device in an AMI cylinder whose axis is along the paddle hinge, with the cylinder rotating with the paddle as it pitches under the action of the waves. As far as I can tell, dynamicMeshDict setup for AMI cases typically uses the solidBodyMotionFvMesh/libfvMotionSolvers.so toolkit, which prevents the AMI region from deforming with the device and allows it to move with it instead - but at a prescribed speed. I would like the device motion to be calculated using the sixDoFRigidBodyMotion solver, but this works using mesh deformation - which is incompatible with my AMI cylinder.

My question is how should I set up my dynamicMeshDict to achieve this? I've tried, with sixDoFRigidBodyMotion, setting the rotor AMI patch as the target of the motion solver with the WEC's properties (centre of mass, mass, moment of inertia...), setting the WEC itself as the target - which seems more likely to me since the force due to the waves needs to be calculated based on the device geometry - and setting both (i.e. patches (WEC AMICylinder); in dyamicMeshDict) with a range of settings for the innerDistance and outerDistance parameters, but at the moment the simulation won't run with the way it's set up. My question is not too dissimilar to that posed in this thread (http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ope...plication.html), but that seems quite old and it is a different application.

If needs be, I'm happy to custom-make my own motion solver to do the job that I need - but I'm still learning C++ and am relatively new to OpenFOAM so would need advice on what to do.

If anything about my question is unclear then let me know and I'll be happy to provide more information/clarification. Similarly let me know if it would be helpful to see a particular log or dictionary file (I'm using the olaFoam toolbox for my NWT).
Thanks,
James

[jbcourt]

Just realised I hadn't put anything about my OpenFOAM install. I'm running OF3.0.1 on Ubuntu 15.10 by the way.

Also my earlier efforts (targeting both the AMI rotor patch and the WEC patch and then varying the inner and outerDistance values in dynamicMeshDict) was drawn from some information on another similar thread - http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ope...tion-6dof.html mainly post #6. My reason for not just continuing on that thread was that I was unclear on how much OF had changed in the time since most of the comments on there - it's mostly >2 years old.