Introducing Topography to Large-Eddy Simulations

Through this work, we implement the immersed boundary method (IBM) within Oceananigans to assist in answering the many research questions involving flow along and over topography. The aspects of the implementation were chosen to best benefit the application of the method to geophysical problems. We found that most of the literature focused on more engineering aspects, which will have different goals and complexities than that of ocean flow. Through studying flow around a cylinder, we found good agreement between our implementation and that of other numerical and experimental results. Due most likely to our choices favoring geophysical applications, we did encounter some differences in our results compared to similar IBM codes. Some of these differences, showed better convergence and accuracy, while other aspects were not as favorable. However, taking into consideration the accuracy of the parameterized models that ocean simulations already rely on, we have successfully created a tool for scientists to use in their studies of topography in turbulent flows.