The 1st International Conference on Water Resources and Coastal Engineering
NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF WAVE LOADS ON A SUBMERGED
RECTANGULAR BRIDGE DECK
Em Le Huynh1)*, Chia-Ren Chu 1)
1)
Department of Civil Engineering, National Central University, Taiwan, ROC
E-mail: huynhleem@iuh.edu.vn, crchu@cc.ncu.edu.tw
Abstract - Cross-river structures such as bridges in the
coastal areas could be partially or entirely submerged in
the water during storm surges and attacked by the currents
and waves. The failure of cross-river structures usually
occurs in the event of extreme floods and storm surges
which deviate tremendously from the steady assumption.
There have been several incidents around the world where
bridge decks have been fully submerged in torrential
flows. For example, Hurricane Katrina damaged 45
bridges in the gulf area of the U.S. in 2005. Nonetheless,
the bridge engineers usually neglect the hydrodynamic
loading on the bridge structures, due to the difficulty to
predict the dynamic process of turbulent flows and wave
loads on the cross-river structures. This study integrates a
two-dimensional Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model
and the Volume of Fluid (VOF) method to investigate the
flow fields around a submerged rectangular bridge deck.
The validated numerical model then was utilized to study
the effects of submergence, deck thickness (blockage
effect) on the dimensionless force coefficient of the
submerged deck. The simulation results indicated that the
wave height downstream of the bridge deck was smaller
than that of upstream of the deck. Also, the blockage ratio
did not significantly affect the simulated wave heights
downstream of the bridge .
Key words - Large Eddy Simulation; Wave loads; Bridge
deck; Volume of Fluid; Blockage ratio; Submergence
ratio.
1. Introduction
Catalano et al. [2] studied and compared the
simulation results of a Large Eddy Simulation (LES)
model and a Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS)
for flows around a circular cylinder without water surface
under high Reynolds numbers (Re = 5 × 105 – 2 × 106).
The Reynolds number is computed by using the relation
between the diameter of the cylinder and the free stream
velocity. Their results concluded that the drag coefficient
determined by the LES model is better than that by the
RANS, as compared to the experimental laboratory
results. Besides, the pressure drag is much larger than the
skin friction drag on the cylinder surface.
Chu et al. [8] studied the hydrodynamic forces on a
fully submerged rectangular cylinder by employing a
three-dimensional Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model.
Their simulation results were validated by flume
experiments and demonstrated that the drag coefficient of
the rectangular cylinder, due to the blockage effect, is
larger than that in an unbounded domain. The drag
coefficient of the cylinder in trans-critical flows is greater
than that in the subcritical flows under the same blockage
ratio, owing to the wave-induced drag. Furthermore, the
separated shear flow on the upper side of the cylinder is
constrained by the water surface when the cylinder is
close to the water surface, and the resulting asymmetric
pressure distribution generates a downward force on the
cylinder, and the lift coefficient is a function of the
Froude number and the submergence ratio.
The interaction between submerged decks and the
wave loads is an interesting topic of a number of scientific
and engineering problems. Wave loads on submerged
decks is essential to the design and analysis of tsunami
and storm wave loads on coastal bridge decks. Water
height may rise to a higher elevation due to the effect of
storm surge during flooding events. Bridge decks can be
partially or entirely submerged in the river flows when the
design discharge is exceeded. There have been several
incidents around the world where bridge decks have been
entirely submerged in torrential flows. When bridge decks
are submerged, the hydrodynamic loading on these
bridges is an essential parameter for evaluating their
safety. For example, coastal bridges were entirely
submerged under such extreme storm surges or tsunamis,
as they were reported during the 2004 Sumatra earthquake
and the subsequent tsunami in the Indian Ocean. In
addition, Hurricane Katrina damaged 45 bridges in the
Gulf area of the U.S. in 2005, and 2011 Tohoku
earthquake and tsunami destroyed many coastal structures
in Japan.
The effect of wave loads on submerged decks has
been studied and validated by a large number of
theoretical and experimental results. There are some
previous studies on the responses of wave forces on
submerged decks. The results became completely
valuable by their application in the offshore industry.
Linear solutions and relations, similar to that suggested by
Morison et al. (1950), were applied to approximate the
loads. Brater et al. (1958), Herbich and Shank (1970), and
Durgin and Shiau (1975), and more lately Rey and
Touboul (2011), did experimental results on the
interaction between sinusoidal waves and submerged
horizontal decks in the intermediate and deep water.
Hayatdavoodi et al. [1] used the Green–Naghdi (GN)
equation to compute the non-linear wave load on a
 Em Le Huynh, Chia-Ren Chu 2

submerged bridge deck in shallow waters. They assumed the quantity is the spatially filtered value [3,4,5]. The
the bridge deck is a thin horizontal plate and blockage effective viscosity, μeff, is defined as:
ratio (the deck thickness over the average water depth) of eff    SGS (3)
the deck did not affect the dimensionless force
coefficients of the bridge deck. where μ is the dynamic viscosity of the water; and μSGS is
the viscosity of the sub-grid scale turbulence [10]. The
sub-grid scale turbulence was modeled by the
2. Numerical Model Smagorinsky [9] model:
This study utilized the same Large Eddy Simulation
SGS    CS  S 
2
(LES) model used by Chu et al. [8] to compute the wake 2S ij S ij (4)
flow of a circular cylinder underneath the water surface. where Cs is the Smagorinsky coefficient; Sij is the filtered
The governing equations are the filtered continuity rate of strain tensor:
equation and Navier–Stokes equations:
1  u u j 
ui S ij   i   (5)
0 (1) 2  x j xi 
xi 

 and s is the characteristic length of the spatial filter and

  ui  ui u j P  
 ui u j
    g i 3   eff    is calculated as:
t x j xi x j   x j xi

 
S   xyz 
1/3
(6)
(2)
where x, y, z are the three components of the grid
where u is the fluid velocity; subscripts i, j =1, 2 and 3 lengths. In this study, the value of the Smagorinsky
represent the x, y and z directions, respectively; t is the coefficient was set as Cs = 0.30 for two-dimensional
time; P is the pressure; ρ is the density of the fluid; g is flows. The computational domain was discretized by the
the gravitational acceleration; and the over-bar represents Finite Volume Method (FVM).The forward difference
 The 1st International Conference on Water Resources and Coastal Engineering
scheme was used to calculate the time derivative term. became smaller when the deck came close to the water
The Poisson Pressure Equation (PPE) was solved by the surface. The value of the wave height decreased as the
projection method [11]. The convergence criterion for the submergence ratio decreased.
momentum equations was set as 10-6.
The kinematics of the water surface were solved by
the Volume of Fluid (VOF) method [7]. The volume
fraction fm occupied by the water in a grid cell can be
described by:
f m 

t x j

fm u j  0  (7)

The computational cell is full of water when the

volume fraction fm=1; and the cell partially occupied by
water when 0 ≤ fm ≤ 1. The wall function, suggested by
Cabot and Moin [6], was used to calculate the effective
viscosity near the channel bed:
SGS
 
 2
  z  1  e Z w /A
(8)

Fig. 3: Water surface variation for the case without deck
 zu* and deck with S*=1 and S*=2 of the deck with D/H=0.1
z  (9)

where z is the vertical distance from the cell center to the
wall; κ (= 0.41) is the von Karman constant; u∗ is the
shear velocity; and the parameter A = 19. Further details
of the numerical model can be found in Chu et al. [8].
The deck surface and channel floor were set as a no-
slip boundary condition; the lateral boundaries were set as
a free-slip boundary condition. The pressure above the
water surface was set as zero. The computational domain
was discretized by the finite-volume method (FVM). The
grid arrangement was shown in Fig. 2. The entire
computational domain was divided into three zones. Zone
II (-10 < x/D < 15), where the deck was located, adopted a
uniform grid with the smallest grid size. The grid size in
(a)
Zones I and III was twice the smallest grid size. The
Courant number was set as Cr = 0.85, and the average
time step was t = 5 × 10-3 s.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Submergence Effect
The submergence ratio is defined as:
S
S*  (10)
D
where S is the distance between averaged water surface
and the deck; D is thickness of the bridge deck.
The blockage ratio is defined as:
D
Br  (11) (b)
H Fig. 4: Simulated surface displacement in the case S*= 1 at
where H is the average water depth. the upstream and downstream of the deck with (a) D/H=0.2 and
(b) D/H=0.4
Fig. 3 shows the water surface variation at the location
(-20 < x/L < 80) for the case without deck and the deck
with the submergence ratio S*= 1 and S*= 2, respectively.
As the wave went over the deck, the wave surface was
changed, became unsteady. The submerged horizontal
deck can also be used as wave breakers. The wave height
 Em Le Huynh, Chia-Ren Chu 4

Fig. 5: Simulated velocity vectors on the central plane (y/W Fig. 6: Simulated velocity vectors on the central plane (y/W
= 0.5) of the deck with S*=1 . (a) t = To + T/4; (b)t = To + T/2; = 0.5) of the deck with S*=2 . (a) t = To + T/4; (b)t = To + T/2;
(c) t = To + 3T/4; (d) t = To + T. (c) t = To + 3T/4; (d) t = To + T.
 The 1st International Conference on Water Resources and Coastal Engineering
Fig. 4 shows the simulated surface displacement in the
case S* = 1 at the upstream and downstream of the deck
with D/H = 0.2 and D/H = 0.4. The wave surface was
simulated in 5 seconds. The simulation results indicated
that the wave height upstream (x/L = -5) of the bridge
deck is larger than that of downstream (x/L = 10) of the
deck.
Figs. 5 and 6 show the simulated velocity vectors on
the central plane (y/W = 0.50) of the tank S*= 1 and S*=
2, respectively, at four different phases of one cycle. The
period T = 0.5 s, and the reference time To = 15 s. The
interaction between the deck and the vortices became
more complicated as the submergence ratio increased.
Furthermore, the wave height and wave-induced velocity
in the case S*= 1 was larger than that of S* = 2. The
vortices originated by the deck became weaker with
increasing the submergence ratio S*.
3.2. Blockage effect
Fig. 7 compares the water surface variation for the
case with the deck and without the deck, under the
blockage ratio Br = 0.20, 0.30 and 0.40 at the location (-
20 < x/L < 80). As the waves went over the deck, the
wave surface was changed, became more complicated.
Fig. 8 shows the simulated surface displacement in the
case of the deck with the blockage ratio Br = 0.20, 0.30
and 0.40 at the location (x/L = 10). The simulation results
indicated that the blockage ratio did not significantly
affect the wave heights.
Fig. 7: Water surface variation in the case without deck and
deck with Br=0.2, Br=0.3, Br=0.4
4. Conclusion
This study used a Large Eddy Simulation (LES)
model and the Volume of Fluid (VOF) method to
investigate the wave over a submerged rectangular bridge
deck. The effects of submergence ratio and blockage ratio
of the deck were studied systematically by the numerical
model. The simulation results indicated that the wave
(Receive on: …/…/2019, Review on: …/…/2019)
height downstream of the bridge deck is smaller than that
of upstream. Furthermore, the effect of the blockage ratio
on the simulated wave height is insignificant. The future
study will focus on pressure and wave load of the
submerged deck, which are important parameters for the
design of coastal bridges.
Fig. 8: Simulated surface displacement in the case Br=0.2,
Br=0.3 and Br=0.4 at the upstream and downstream of the deck.
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Em Le Huynh, Chia-Ren Chu 6

Author information

Full name of author 1: Em Le Huynh

- Department of Civil Engineering, Ho Chi Minh University of Technology, Master Degree.
- Ph. D student in Department of Civil Engineering, National Central University
- Research topics: Hydraulic engineering, wind engineering
- Phone number: +886 910 824 414

Full name of author 2: Chia-Ren Chu

- Civil and Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ph.D.
- Professor in Department of Civil Engineering, National Central University
- Research topics: Fluid mechanics, hydraulic engineering
- Phone number: 886 3 4227151 #34138