Vegetation meadows in coastal waters are a key constituent of a future green defense package due to the ecosystem services they provide and the potential to attenuate wave energy. To numerically describe the vegetation dynamics under wave action, this paper presents a novel application of a numerical coupling for solving fluid–elastic structure interactions (FSI) problems involving ultra-thin elements in a 3-D environment. The extended two-way coupling employed in this work combines the mesh-free Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method in the DualSPHysics code to solve the fluid flow, and the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) structural solver in Project Chrono to solve the structural dynamics. To represent the vegetation, a flexible structure based on the Euler–Bernoulli beam model is used. The beam element is embedded into the SPH domain using an envelope subdomain that is discretized using dummy boundary particles. As such, this dummy envelope serves as a decoupling interface for the geometrical properties of the structure, allowing for ultra-thin structures smaller than the initial inter-particle distance (dp). The numerical approach is validated against an experimental setup including a flexible blade swaying under the action of an oscillatory flow. The results demonstrate that the numerical model is able to resolve the wave–vegetation interaction problem. Furthermore, additional insights into the blade dynamics reveal that the swaying velocity increases linearly along the length, with the upper part swaying at a speed comparable to the fluid velocity while the stem remains relatively stationary. Additionally, the findings indicate that rigid vegetation experiences higher forces per unit length, and in systems with substantial swaying motion, energy dissipation predominantly occurs around the lower base of the vegetation.

Ongoing climate change is a significant threat to coastal communities. To understand potential risks during extreme storm events, detailed post-overtopping processes are investigated using DualSPHysics and SWASH with a newly developed approach. It is a calibrated-based wave generation: a target incident wave is first obtained from the validated SWASH model, and DualSPHysics creates the target incident wave by adjusting the offshore wave and bathymetry conditions. This one-way coupling process makes the DualSPHysics computation efficient enough to apply 3D simulation. With a vertical wall at the end of a room located at the end of the promenade in a mild and shallow foreshore, the present model shows a good correspondence on the wave force with the literature. After confirming the efficiency and accuracy of the present model, the 3D simulation with furniture inside the room was conducted and visualized with the state-of-the-art visualization technique. Based on the visualization, the potential risks during the extreme storm event are further discussed in this paper. The present work shows a further capability of DualSPHysics to deal with wave–object–structure interaction based on the latest developments in an efficient way. The developed model can be further used to understand the potential risks of ongoing climate change.

As waves interact with the slopes of coral reefs and other steep bathymetry profiles, plunging breaking usually occurs where the free surface overturns and violent water motion is triggered. Resolving these surf zone processes pose significant challenges for conventional mesh-based hydrodynamic models, due to the rapidly-deforming nature of the free surface and associated flows. Yet the accurate prediction of these surf zone hydrodynamics is critical for predicting a wide range of nearshore processes driven by wave breaking (e.g., wave dissipation and energy transfers; mean water levels and currents; and wave runup). In this study we assess the ability of the mesh-free, Lagrangian particle-based numerical modelling approach Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) based on DualSPHysics, to simulate the fine-scale hydrodynamic processes driven by irregular wave transformation over a fringing reef profile, by comparing results against detailed experimental observations from a physical modelling study. To greatly improve the computational efficiency, the SPH model was coupled to the mesh-based multi-layer nonhydrostatic wave-flow model SWASH. With this coupled approach, SWASH was used to efficiently simulate the evolution of non-breaking waves from the wavemaker up to the fore reef slope, with the SPH model then used to simulate the detailed hydrodynamic processes over the reef from just offshore of the breakpoint to the shoreline. The SPH model was able to accurately reproduce the complex free surface deformations during plunging breaking, the spectral evolution of waves across the reef flat (including nonlinear wave shape), the mean water levels and currents, and wave runup at the shoreline. Using the long duration simulations (>400 wave periods), the model was able to reproduce the full range of wave motions over the reef (from sea-swell to infragravity frequencies), including the increasing dominance of low frequency waves towards the shoreline and the large cross-reef standing wave motions excited by the reef geometry.

An improved Relaxation Zone (RZ) method has been implemented in the meshless SPH-based DualSPHysics model. Final purpose of this work is to have a general wave generation scheme that allows coupling SPH-based models to other models, e.g. Eulerian based wave models, besides employing the RZ as alternative wave generation in SPH as a stand-alone scheme. Using RZ in SPH, the movement of the fluid particles is controlled by correcting their orbital velocity by means of a weighting function in a specified generation area. In the present work, the new technique is used to couple DualSPHysics to the non-hydrostatic wave-flow model SWASH. The results of RZ employed both as stand-alone wave generation technique and as coupling framework with SWASH model are validated for wave generation and wave reflection for monochromatic waves. Then, the method is tested successfully for generation and absorption of irregular waves. Finally, the coupling between DualSPHysics and SWASH using RZ is validated against experimental data concerning the wave flow impacts on vertical walls. A procedure for a proper design of the RZ (i.e. shape of the weighting function, size of the RZ) is described in the present work. Overall, the results indicate that the proposed improved RZ technique is among the most effective alternatives for wave generation in SPH-based models for coastal engineering application.