Design and Construction of an Optimum Wave Flume

This paper describes the design, construction, and testing of a small wave flume and associated equipment. The wave flume is equipped with a flap-type wave generator, capable of producing both regular and irregular waves. Flap paddle is used to examine deep water and floating structures. Instrumentation includes three capacitive wave gauges. The wave-maker is controlled by a desktop computer, which also provides data-logging capability. In order to design a wave absorber of restricted length, all the different mechanisms able to dissipate wave energy studied. Finally from the survey of the wave absorbers used in different laboratories, a gravel beach designed for absorbing the waves coming from wave maker. By sealing leaks around paddle the error of measuring height-to-stroke ratios versus relative depth is decreased by 3%. The main advantage of this system over the previous ones is reduction of the amount of effort in the set up with optimum deflection and low level cost utility.