Fluid–structure interaction between a pendulum and monochromatic waves

Maritime structures operating out at sea experience large changes in wetted area because of free surface waves. Although these conditions are typical for maritime applications, a fundamental experiment that includes a structure in the air–water interface undergoing transitions from dry to wet and back does not appear to exist. This paper aims to fill that knowledge gap. We present an experiment in which a pendulum is suspended just above the still water level and then exposed to monochromatic free surface waves with different wave lengths. Additionally a reduced-order model is derived to compute the response of the pendulum and help interpret the experimental results. The motion response of the pendulum is demonstrated to depend highly on whether the wave period is much lower or higher than the dry natural period of the pendulum. Additionally, a sensitivity study with the wave amplitude in the model and a quantification of the variability in the experiment both indicate that the variability in the motion response of the pendulum is increased with respect to the variability of the incoming wave. We believe this experiment and the results make for an interesting benchmark of fluid–structure interaction in free surface waves. The properties of the pendulum and the experiment are available as open data at doi:10.4121/13187594 (Wellens and Bos, 2020).