Optimized hybrid model for coastal safety assessment

Increasing number of large disturbances and ongoing sea level rise are great threads for low-lying countries like Belgium. Representing all the processes on coast by a numerical model is highly challenging: the resolution of each process is different (e.g. wave transformation and wave force). Efforts to tackle this issue have been already done in the last 2.5 years as project of a hybridization strategy between the SWASH and the DualSPHysics models. However this strategy presents a drawback that limits its real applicability: it cannot deal with the reflected waves correctly. Finally this oblige to use the SWASH-DualSPHysics technique only when the wave reflection is small or only for few waves. This requires an extra advanced strategy to be able to overcome reflection problem. The goal of this project is to develop the advanced strategy and develop the optimized hybrid model. In the end of this project, we will dispose of a tool capable of model the wave-structure interaction in an optimized, low-cost, and fast way as an end product. This model will be an important tool to answer further problems to be faced in S&A, where for example, the 3D effects of complex structural geometries on the wave overtopping and overflows and characterize flow patterns, velocity fields, loadings, etc.
In close collaboration with teh Spanish WELCOME-project coordinated by UVigo in terms of input and output.