Active Control of A Piston-Type Absorbing Wavemaker with Fully Reflective Structure

Multiple reflections of the waves between structure and wavemaker in hydraulic flumes could change the frequency content of the desired incident wave or result in resonance. A prominent approach to avoid multiple reflections is active control of the wavemaker. This paper proposes a simple and practical active control algorithm for piston-type wavemaker. The block diagram of the control system is presented in real time domain. It is shown that there is no need to use any transfer function or filter in the feedback and feed forward loops and the use of constant gains can yield acceptable results. In the operating frequency range (0.25–2 Hz), it is revealed that the proposed system is very effective at suppressing the excitation of resonant sloshing for regular wave. In the case of irregular waves, it is depicted that the experimental waves agree quite well with the desired wave elevation in frequency domain. In addition, comparison of the results obtained both with and without absorption discloses the good characteristics in time domain.