GREEN WATER ON A FIXED MODEL IN A LARGE WAVE BASIN: FLOW VELOCITY, VOID FRACTION, AND IMPACT PRESSURE DISTRIBUTIONS

摘要

Green water impact due to extreme waves impinging on a fixed, rectangular shaped model structure was investigated experimentally. The experiment was carried out in the large wave basin of the Offshore Technology Research Center at Texas A&M University. In the study, two wave conditions were considered: a plunging breaking wave impinging on the frontal vertical wall (referred as wall impingement) and a breaking wave directly impinging on the deck surface (referred as deck impingement). The aerated flow velocity was measured by employing the bubble image velocimetry (BIV) technique with high speed cameras. The pressure distribution on the deck surface was measured by four differential pressure sensors. The fiber optic reflectometer (FOR) technique was employed to measure the void fraction in front of each pressure sensor end face. The flow velocity, void fraction, and impact pressure, were synchronized and simultaneously measured. Comparisons between an earlier study by Ryu et al. (2007) and the present study were performed to examine the scale effect. Results between Song et al. (2015) and the present results were also compared to investigate the influence of structure geometry on green water flow and impact pressure. To examine the role of air bubbles during the impact, the velocity, pressure, and void fraction were correlated. Correlation between the peak pressure and the aeration level shows a negative trend before the wave impingement but a positive linear relationship after the impingement.