Numerical Simulation of Random Irregular Waves for Wave Generation in Laboratory Flumes

Understanding of wave hydrodynamics and its effects are important for engineers and scientists. Important insights may be gained from laboratory studies. Often the waves are simulated in laboratory flumes do not have the full characteristics of real sea waves. It is then necessary to present reliable methods of wave generation in wave flumes. In this paper, the results of numerically simulated water waves using different methods are presented. A model was developed to simulate water wave profile using DSA, NAS and WNDF methods. The results showed that although DSA method provides better agreement between output and target spectra, it is associated with non realistic simulation of sea waves. In the other hand WNDF method involves better stochastic wave characteristics if a qualitative white noise is used. It is also possible to put some controls on wave characteristics as input to WNDF model.