3D Numerical Study of Hydrodynamic Forces on Surface-Piercing Inclined Marine Piles

Inclined pile is a structural element which is widely used in variety of structures to confront the lateral forces in marine environment. Although study of wave forces on piles dates back to few decades ago, however many of these studies mainly focused on wave interaction with vertical piles. These results then roughly extend for inclined piles. This study focus on numerical estimation of the hydrodynamic wave forces on a Surface- Piercing Inclined Marine Pile to determine the hydrodynamic coefficients. A set of tests performed on cylinders with different inclined angles in a numerical wave tank with a piston-type wave maker using Flow 3D. History of applied forces resulting from the model run and also Morison equation are used to extract hydrodynamic drag and inertia coefficients. The results showed that these coefficients are very sensitive to wave characteristics and pile inclined angles so that the tables in classical offshore texts mostly overestimate or underestimate these important factors.