Duan, L.; Jeng, D.-S.; Wang, S., and Zhu, B., 2019. Numerical investigation of the wave/current–induced responses of transient soil around a square mono-pile foundation. Journal of Coastal Research, 35(3), 625–636. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.

A mono-pile foundation is a commonly used supporting base for marine infrastructure in shallow water, such as offshore wind turbine foundations and cross-sea bridges and platforms. Sea floor instability around a pile foundation has attracted much attention among offshore geotechnical engineers. In this paper, a three-dimensional numerical model for wave–seabed–structure interactions is proposed using open field operation and manipulation (OpenFOAM). Unlike previous studies, currents are included in the proposed model and applied to a square cross-section mono-pile foundation. In the model, the flow motion is described by the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equation and k–ϵ turbulence model, and the water free surface is tracked using the volume of fluid (VOF) method. Meanwhile, the soil response is determined by the Biot's poro-elastic equation (u–p approximation), in which the accelerations of the soil displacements are included. After the model is validated with the previous laboratory experiments, it is further used to investigate the transient soil response around the square mono-pile foundation. Numerical results demonstrate that the cross-section shape has significant influence on the distribution of wave/current–induced transient pore pressure but little influence on the maximum soil liquefaction depth. On the other hand, both the current velocity and the seabed permeability can greatly affect the maximum soil liquefaction depth and slightly affect the distribution of pore pressure. Furthermore, the cross-section dimension significantly affects both the maximum soil liquefaction depth and the distribution of the pore pressure around a mono-pile foundation.