ON THE ACCURACY OF THE DESINGULARIZED BOUNDARY INTEGRAL METHOD IN FREE-SURFACE FLOW PROBLEMS

In this paper the numerical properties of the desingularized boundary integral formulation were studied within the framework of free surface potential problems. Several numerical experiments were carried out on simple test cases in order to investigate the effects on the accuracy of the distance between the singularity sheet and the free boundary. The optimum value of this distance was related to the mesh size by sim ple correlations. Once the desingularized boundary integral formulatio n had been so calibrated, it was implemented for the solution of two t ypical free surface flow problems: wave diffraction around a fixed obs tacle and wave resistance of submerged bodies. Numerical results are d iscussed in comparison with experimental data; the computational effic iency and accuracy of desingularized algorithms are confirmed and spec ified. (C) 1977 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.