The Need

There are many applications that require studying wind-driven waves in marine environments. Modeling waves is a necessary tool to study these specific results, because a model allows for the researcher to be in a different location from the body of water, as well as control all of the potential variables that come into play, most of which are subject to nature. Improving on existing modeling techniques also improves the time required and the accuracy of the results.

The Technology

Researchers from The Ohio State University College of Engineering Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering and Engineering Education Innovation Center have developed DG­WAVE, a numerical wave model that uses a discontinuous Galerkin (DG) finite element method to solve a set of parametric wave equations describing the spatial and temporal evolution of wave momentum due to winds. The model requires a finite element mesh of the water body of interest, e.g., a given lake or portion of an ocean basin, referred to as the model domain as an input. Also, a meteorological forcing file describing the wind velocity over the model domain for a specified period of time is needed. Both the mesh and the meteorological forcing file must be provided in formats consistent with the ADCIRC model (see adcirc.org). The model can be used to both "hindcast" (using historical wind records) and forecast (using predicted wind fields) wave conditions due to wind. As final output, the model produces time series of significant wave heights, defined traditionally as the average value of the highest one­-third of the waves in a series and formally as four times the standard deviation of the water surface elevation. More informally, the measure of significant wave height is meant to quantitatively express the wave height estimated by a "trained observer" and is commonly used as a measure of the height of ocean waves.

Commercial Applications

• Hydrodynamics
• Environmental science
• Marine life research/ecology
• Materials science
• Civil/mechanical engineering

Benefits/Advantages

• Graphical user interface is easy to use
• Visualization of output
• DG wave model is 33 times faster than the well-established SWAN model, with similar results