A new simulation and optimisation platform for marine technology

沿海区在解决人类面临的两个最紧迫问题：能源供应和水资源方面发挥着至关重要的作用。海洋可再生能源和海水淡化的特点都是在大规模的洋流中部署相对较小规模的技术（例如潮汐涡轮机或海水淡化厂排水口）。了解亚米级装置与数十公里外洋流之间的多尺度相互作用对于评估环境影响以及优化以最大限度地降低项目成本或实现利润最大化至关重要。所涉及的规模和物理过程的广泛范围，以及优化复杂耦合系统的需求，代表了非常艰巨的软件开发和计算挑战。从地理位置上看，英国在海洋可再生能源领域处于世界领先地位，但足够的软件将是决定这一新行业成功的关键因素。为了满足这一需求，该项目将重新设计一个独特的CFD海洋规模建模包，以提供性能可移植性，未来证明和大幅增加的能力。为了推动这一点，我们将针对两个应用：通过潮汐涡轮机阵列和从海水淡化厂排放浓水的可再生能源发电。这两个项目的特点都是空间和时间尺度的广泛性，需要进行设计优化和准确的影响评估，目前缺乏所需的软件。该项目将建立在多学科研究团队的几个世界领先的开源软件项目的基础上。该团队在开发高质量开源软件方面已经有了长期而成功的合作记录，这些软件能够利用大规模高性能计算，并已在学术界和工业界广泛使用。此外，该项目还召集了广泛的合适的项目合作伙伴，以协助项目的交付，并促进长期影响。其中包括尖端软件开发的互补卓越中心、目标应用领域的行业领导者、海洋咨询公司以及为环境监管做出贡献的公司。

The coastal zone plays a crucial part in addressing two of the most pressing issues facing humanity: energy supply and water resources. Marine renewable energy and desalination are both characterised by the deployment of relatively small-scale technology (for example, tidal turbines, or desalination plant outfalls) in large-scale ocean flows. Understanding the multi-scale interactions between sub-metre scale installations and ocean currents over tens of kilometres is crucial for assessing environmental impacts, and for optimisation to minimise project costs or maximise profits. The vast range of scales and physical processes involved, and the need to optimise complex coupled systems, represent highly daunting software development and computational challenges. Geographically, the UK is uniquely positioned to become a world leader in marine renewable energy, but adequate software will be a key factor in determining the success of this new industry.To address this need, this project will re-engineer a unique CFD to marine scale modelling package to provide performance-portability, future-proofing and substantially increased capabilities. To motivate this we will target two applications: renewable energy generation via tidal turbine arrays and dense water discharge from desalination plants. Both are characterised by a common wide range of spatial and temporal scales, the need for design optimisation and accurate impact assessments, and a current lack of the required software.This project will build upon several world-leading open source software projects from the assembled multi-disciplinary research team. This team already has a long and successful track record of working together on the development of high quality open source software which is able to exploit large-scale high performance computing and has been used widely in academia and industry. In addition, the project has assembled a wide range of suitable project partners to aid in the delivery of the project as well as to promote longer term impact. These include complementary centres of excellence in cutting-edge software development, industry leaders in the targeted application areas, marine consultancies, and those contributing to environmental regulation.