Broadband control of water wave energy amplification in chirped arrays

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how chirped arrays of vertical cylinders can control and amplify broadband water wave energy at specific locations, with potential applications in energy harvesting.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method inspired by slow light in optics to design arrays that manipulate water wave energy distribution and amplification.

Findings

Significant wave energy amplification observed experimentally.

Numerical predictions closely match experimental results.

Potential for application in water wave energy harvesting.

Abstract

Water waves in natural environments are typically broadband, nonlinear and dynamic phenomena. Taking concepts developed for slow light in optics, we address the challenge of designing arrays to control the spatial distribution of wave energy, and amplify target frequencies at specified locations. Experiments on incident waves interacting with a chirped array of eight vertical cylinders demonstrate significant amplifications as predicted numerically, and provide motivation for application to energy harvesting.