Research Article Comparative Study of Flow Patterns around Rhizophora and Avicennia Mangrove Roots Using Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation Sini Rahuman , 1 A. Mohamed Ismail , 1 Shyla Manavalan Varghese , 2 and George Kwamina Toworfe 3 1 Department of Mathematics, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, India 2 Department of Developmental Mathematics, Houston Community College, Houston, TX, USA 3 Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Allied Sciences, Regent University College of Science and Technology, Mallam, Ghana Correspondence should be addressed to Sini Rahuman; sini.rahuman@polytechnic.bh, A. Mohamed Ismail; ismailbtl@yahoo.co, and George Kwamina Toworfe; george.toworfe@regent.edu.gh Received 4 May 2022; Revised 23 May 2022; Accepted 27 May 2022; Published 15 June 2022 Academic Editor: Samson Jerold Samuel Chelladurai Copyright © 2022 Sini Rahuman et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. e goal of this research is to visualize and compare the patterns of the fluid flow around stilt roots of Rhizophora mangrove species and pneumatophore roots of Avicennia mangrove species in Pichavaram mangrove forest to better understand how mangrove roots can potentially slow down heavy wind flow and thereby offer protection to the coast from natural disasters. e flow around the roots is simulated and analyzed using ANSYS Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software using an unsteady k-ε turbulence model. Wind and water flow velocities vary with respect to time during tsunami, cyclones, typhoons, or hurricanes. Hence, inlet velocity taken as the step function is applied to simulate the change in speed of fluid flow to study the flow behavior. Velocity and pressure are measured at various points around Rhizophora and Avicennia mangrove roots. e findings of the simulation reveal that the Rhizophora stilt roots and pneumatophore roots of Avicennia marina continuously lower the fluid velocity. e Rhizophora mangrove roots can largely decrease the flow velocity because of the complexity and its root dimensions in comparison to Avicennia roots. e data obtained from this research can be applied to increase the efficiency of breakwater models and, as a result, safeguard the shore from natural disasters. 1. Introduction Coastal defense is one of the more challenging problems faced by the world. One of the simplest solutions, however, is to plant and conserve coastal mangroves. Mangroves are a type of densely vegetated mudflat that grow in brackish or saline water along the coast. Mangrove forests serve an important role in defending the shoreline from natural disasters. e Indian Ocean tsunami which occurred in 2004 wreaked a lot of havoc on some Asian and African countries. Communities located behind mangrove forests, however, were shown to be safer from tsunami destruction than other villages [1]. e roots of mangroves are unique since they have aerial roots that enable the trees to grow securely on the muddy shore. e salty content of the water is separated from clean water by the aerial root, therefore enabling sedimentation to help in preserving the mangrove habitat. Various studies [2–16] have been conducted, numerically and analytically, to investigate and find out the importance of the mangrove forest. In order to examine wave attenuation over a vegetated region of finite extent, researchers [17] created a small-am- plitude periodic wave numerical model in which waves travel through a lattice-like array of vertical cylinders. In the presence of stiff vegetation, researchers provided a refraction- diffraction wave model [18] for assessing wave propagation along a moderate slope zone on the shore. A three-dimen- sional numerical technique [19] was used to analyze the tsunami wave interacting with mangrove forests. In a recent Hindawi Advances in Materials Science and Engineering Volume 2022, Article ID 8992513, 13 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/8992513