Behavior of the residual wave components in a 3D wave basin after the termination of the wave maker

After the termination of the wave making, the characteristics of the existing wave components in a 3D large scale Offshore Engineering wave Basin (OEB) at the National Research Council of Canada have been investigated experimentally. In the generation of any wave in the tank we get the relevant primary wave components along with bounded wave components if the incident primary wave has more than one frequency. Inevitably we also get interacted wave components, natural frequency components of the tank and other free waves. In this paper the tank's natural frequency components, bounded wave components and other free waves after the termination of wave making were investigated using several cases of mono- and bi-chromatic waves. These component energies were then compared with the total energy of the measured primary waves. The magnitudes of the residual undulations are also investigated for mono-, bi- and multichromatic waves over different time segments. Several sets of wave data are analysed to perceive the energy due to natural frequency of the basin, energy transferred to the side bands and the damping rate of the residual waves in the tank with respect to the chosen incident wave conditions. In the analysis it is observed that the energy damping rate varies with the incident wave condition but seems much faster than that of 20 minutes traditional waiting time in between two runs in the OEB. The energies for tank's natural frequency components and other free waves were found to be very small compare to the incident primary wave energies.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye