A Comparison of Dirichlet and Neumann Wavemakers for the Numerical Generation and Propagation of Nonlinear Long-Crested Surface Waves

Abstract

We are studying numerically the problem of generation and propagation of long-crested gravity waves in a tank containing an incompressible inviscid homogeneous fluid initially at rest with a horizontal free surface of finite extent and of infinite depth. A nonorthogonal curvilinear coordinate system, which follows the free surface, is constructed and the full nonlinear kinematic and dynamic free surface boundary conditions are utilized in the algorithm. “Wavemakers” are modeled using both the Dirichlet and Neumann lateral boundary conditions and a full comparison is given. Overall, the Dirichlet model was more stable than the Neumann model, with an upper limit steepness S=2A/λ of 0.08 using good resolution compared with the Neumann’s maximum of 0.05.