A deep water beach for laboratory generation of abnormal waves

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Description/Abstract

The design of ships, as well as other marine structures, re-
quires evaluation of wave-induced loads for their operational life. Ships
often encounter abnormal waves in the open ocean during normal op-
erational conditions. Research into how abnormal waves aect a ship is
important, as they may cause severe damage or even loss of a ship.
The experimental method developed during this study uses an adjustable
sloping beach, termed a \deep-water beach", installed upstream of the
target region in a wave tank to generate steep and breaking waves from a
regular wave train. The deep-water beach was found to provide a means
of readily generating dierent types of abnormal wave either singularly
or reoccurring periodically, and in both deep and shallow water.
Preliminary tests were carried out placing a model yacht hull in the target
region and measuring longitudinal force. Comparisons between forces
measured in regular and abnormal waves (generated from the regular
wave) indicate that steep waves induce longitudinal loads signicantly
larger than regular or breaking waves.