Water wave interactions with a horizontal submerged elastic plate

TL;DR

This study investigates how a submerged elastic plate interacts with water waves, showing its potential for wave energy harvesting and wave attenuation through experimental analysis of wave reflection and plate behavior.

Contribution

It provides experimental insights into the wave interaction behavior of submerged elastic plates, highlighting their effectiveness in wave reflection and breaking, which was previously underexplored.

Findings

Elastic plates significantly reflect water waves unlike rigid plates.

Steep waves can change the plate's mean position, sometimes reaching the surface.

Elastic plates can effectively break water waves, aiding energy harvesting and attenuation.

Abstract

This article explores how a submerged elastic plate, clamped at one edge, interacts with water waves. Submerged elastic plates have been considered as potentially effective design elements in the development of wave energy harvesters but their behavior in a wave field remains largely unexplored, especially experimentally. Positioned at a fixed depth in a wave tank, the flexible plate demonstrates significant wave reflection capabilities, a characteristic absent in rigid plates of identical dimensions. The experiments thus reveal that plate motion is crucial for wave reflection. Sufficiently steep waves are shown to induce a change in the mean position of the plate, with the trailing edge reaching the free surface in some cases. This configuration change is found to be particularly efficient to break water waves. These findings contribute to understanding the potential of elastic plates for wave energy harvesting and wave attenuation scenarios.