Surface wave modelling and simulation for wave tanks and coastal areas

For testing ships and offshore structures in hydrodynamic laboratories, the sea and ocean states should be represented as realistic as possible in the wave tanks in which the scaled experiments are executed. To support efficient testing, accurate software that determines and translates the required wave maker motion into the downstream waves is very helpful. This paper describes an efficient hybrid spatial-spectral code that can deal with simulations above flat and varying bottom. The accuracy of the code will be illustrated by presenting comparisons of simulations with experimental data for various different type of non-breaking waves, from dispersive focussing waves to irregular wave fields with freak waves; the very broad-band spectra of such waves provide the main challenge