Simulation Of Directional Waves In A Numerical Basin By A Desingularized Integral Equation Approach

Ocean Engineering 27 (2000) 603–624 www.elsevier.com/locate/oceaneng Simulation of directional waves in a numerical basin by a desingularized integral equation approach A.N Williams*, W.W Crull Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-4791, USA Received October 1998; accepted January 1999 Abstract A numerical solution is developed to investigate the generation and propagation of smallamplitude water waves in a semi-infinite rectangular wave basin The three-dimensional wave field is produced by the prescribed “snake-like” motion of an array of segmented wave generators located along the wall at one end of the tank The solution technique is based on the boundary element approach and uses an appropriate three-dimensional Green function which explicitly satisfies the tank-wall boundary conditions The Green function and its derivatives which appear in the integral equation formulation can be shown to be slowly convergent when the source and field points are in close proximity Therefore, when computing the velocity potentials on the wave generators, the source points are chosen outside the fluid domain, thereby ensuring the rapid convergence of these functions and rendering the integral equations non-singular Numerical results are shown which illustrate the influence of the various wavemaker and basin parameters on the generated wave field Finally, the complete wave field produced by the diffraction of oblique waves by a vertical circular cylinder in a basin is presented  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved Keywords: Directional waves; Laboratory waves; Wave diffraction; Wave basin; Wave generation * Corresponding author Tel.: ϩ 1-713-743-4269; fax: ϩ 1-713-743-4260; e-mail: anwilliams@ jetson.uh.edu 0029-8018/00/$ - see front matter  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved PII: S 0 - 8 ( 9 ) 0 -