Interaction of Waves with Large Vertical Cylinder

Abstract

Dynamic effects due to waves on a large vertical circular cylinder were measured experimentally in a wave tank in the form of pressures, forces, and moments. The experimental data were compared with the wave diffraction theory following the classical analysis of Havelock on a fixed obstacle in waves. The viscous effects were neglected in the analysis on the assumption that for a cylinder of this size the inertia force is most predominant. The maximum horizontal force was found to correlate well with the theory. The pressure decay below the still water level followed the hyperbolic cosine law. Linear variation of pressure up to the free surface was found to be conservative.