Abstract
Experimental testing of large marine structures in hydrodynamic laboratories requires an accurate reproduction of waves over a large area of the basin. However, with a uniform motion of the wavemaker, wave interactions with the basin’s boundaries can result in an inhomogeneous wave field, even before beach reflection takes place. In this paper, the main geometrical parameters causing inhomogeneities are investigated. For that purpose, a fast linear model is implemented and applied to describe wave fields in basins of arbitrary geometry but constant water depth. Comparisons with experiments in SINTEF’s Ocean Basin demonstrate the validity of the model for regular waves. Finally, an efficient method to reduce wave field inhomogeneities by optimizing the motion of the paddles of a multiflap wavemaker is presented and validated experimentally.