Application of Open Loop H-Adaptation to an Unstructured Grid Tidal Flat Model

The complex topology of tidal flats presents a challenge to coastal ocean models. Recently, several models have been developed employing unstructured grids, which can provide the flexibility in mesh resolution required to resolve the complex bathymetry and coastline. However, the distribution of element size in the initial mesh can be somewhat arbitrary, and is in general the product of the operator tailoring the resolution to the underlying bathymetry and regions of interest. In this work, the flow solution from an idealized tidal flat application is used to drive an open loop h-adaptation of the mesh. The model used for this work is the Finite Volume Coastal Ocean Model (FVCOM), an open source, terrain following model. A background length scale distribution derived from model output is used to generate a new initial mesh for the model run, thus defining an iteration of the procedure. Several metrics for computing the background length scale will be examined. These include direct estimation of spatial discretization error using Richardson's extrapolation from a sequence of meshes as well as heuristics derived from gradients in the primitive variables. Examination of grid independence, computational efficiency, and performance of the scheme for idealized tidal flats with inclusion of morphodynamics will be discussed.