Waterway and Current
Oral
Eric Smith, MSE, PE
Sr. Coastal Engineer / Vice President
Moffatt & Nichol
Jeffrey Oskamp, MOcE PE
Coastal Engineer
Moffatt & Nichol
Real time vessel simulation has become an integral part of design of navigation channels, harbor geometries, and marine terminals. A simulator incorporates various environmental data to mimic the response of a vessel to helm controls of the pilot such as water depth, currents, waves, and winds. Because the computations occur in real time, the spatial and temporal resolution of the environmental inputs must be optimized to balance fidelity with computational efficiency. This paper presents applications of coastal numerical modeling as a tool to improve simulations of vessels navigating through time-vary tidal eddies, spectral waves, and tsunami events for waterway design.