The dispersion (transport and breakup) of oil droplets under breaking waves is essential for evaluating the impact of oil spills on the environment, and for designing countermeasures. In this part of the work (Part I), the hydrodynamics of a wave breaker in a 1.0 m deep tank obtained experimentally by Rapp and Melville (Philos Trans R Soc Lond A Math Phys Eng Sci 331(1622):735–800, 1990) using the dispersive focusing method was investigated numerically using Reynold-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) within the CFD code ANSYS Fluent. The renormalization group (RNG) k–ε turbulence closure model was adopted to simulate wave turbulence, and the transient water–air interface was captured using volume of fluid (VOF) method. The simulated surface excursion and velocity fields matched closely the experimental observations during wave breaking. The energy dissipation of the wave crest showed good agreement with recent laboratory work and numerical simulations through evaluating the breaking parameter. The RANS approach was able to reproduce the turbulent kinetic energy field engendered by the breakers and simulated the residual turbulence within about two wave periods after the passage of the wave train. The VOF scheme Compressive provided a better agreement with the observation than the Geo-reconstruct scheme. The approach herein suggests that RANS method coupled with VOF in ANSYS Fluent is capable of capturing the major hydrodynamic forces and turbulence, and thus could be used to predict environmental processes within the breaking waves such as oil droplet formation and transport.

破碎波下油滴的分散（运输和分解）对于评估溢油对环境的影响以及设计对策至关重要。在这部分工作（第一部分）中，Rapp和Melville通过实验获得了1.0 m深储罐中的波浪破碎机的流体动力学特性（Philos Trans R Soc Lond A Math Phys Eng Sci 331（1622）：735-800，1990 ），使用CFD代码ANSYS Fluent中的雷诺平均Navier-Stokes（RANS）对色散聚焦方法进行了数值研究。重整化群（RNG）ķ - ε采用湍流闭合模型来模拟波浪湍流，并使用流体体积（VOF）方法捕获瞬态水-空气界面。在破波过程中，模拟的表面偏移和速度场与实验观察结果非常吻合。通过评估断裂参数，波峰的能量耗散与最近的实验室工作和数值模拟显示出良好的一致性。RANS方法能够再现破碎机产生的湍动能场，并模拟了波列通过后大约两个波浪周期内的残余湍流。与地质重建相比，VOF方案Compressive提供了与观测更好的一致性方案。本文中的方法表明，RANS方法与ANSYS Fluent中的VOF耦合能够捕获主要的流体动力和湍流，因此可用于预测破碎波内的环境过程，例如油滴的形成和运输。