AUKEPC

Wave software for experimental facilities

Deltares conducts experiments in its own facilities for among others water research. The results of these experiments allow us to validate our models and to test, for example, the optimal design of harbours, breakwaters and dikes, or the response of dune to wave load.
A lot of these experiments involve waves. These waves must be generated by a wave generator and at strategically chosen points in the experimental facility they must be measured. The measured waves must be processed and analysed. For these purposes the software package AukePC has been developed to generate, measure and process waves.

General

AukePC is a software package for use in hydraulic laboratory facilities. It has been developed at Deltares.
The software package AukePC consists of the following modules:

•    AukePC/Generate
This module computes the motion of the wave board segment(s) that is required to obtain the desired wave conditions.
•    AukePC/Process
This module handles the processing of wave data by a set of programs
•    AukePC/Arc
The aim of the ARC functionality is to reduce un-wanted re-reflections of waves against the wave board by absorbing the waves coming from the flume or basin at the moment they reach the wave board.
•    AukePC/Measure,
This module is a data acquisition system, comprising both hardware and software.

AukePC/Generate

AukePC/Generate software computes the motion of the wave board segment(s) that is required to obtain the desired wave conditions. The software can be used for both single-segmented wave generators (e.g., for uni-directional wave generation in a flume) and multi-segmented wave generators (e.g., for multi-directional wave generation in a basin). Various modules, such as the first-order module, the second-order module, the ARC preconditioning module and the Dalrymple side-wall reflection module can be purchased.

All AukePC/Generate modules can be used for the following most-commonly used types of wave boards:

• Rotating (flap motion) wave boards with a variable hinge position. The hinge position may be between the floor and the still water level, or below the floor (a so-called virtual hinge position).
• Translatory (piston motion) wave boards.

For more information, see AUKEPC/ generate

AukePC/ARC

A significant improvement in the wave field in flumes and wave basins can be made by equipping the wave generator with the Active Reflection Compensation (ARC) functionality. The aim of the ARC functionality is to reduce un-wanted re-reflections of waves against the wave board by absorbing the waves coming from the flume or basin at the moment they reach the wave board. The un-wanted re-reflections can cause a significant amount of undesired wave field ‘pollution’. The figure shows a target spectrum (in black) and two measured spectra. The green line is obtained with ARC on, while the red line is obtained with ARC switched off. The strong spurious peaks occur at the resonance frequencies of the basin. These peaks constitute significant deviations from the target wave field.

ARC is running simultaneously with generation of the target incident waves, so the wave board generates the target incident waves and absorbs the un-wanted waves at the same time. Equipping a wave generator with the ARC functionality requires additional hardware and software, and a real-time connection to the wave generator control system. The additional hardware concerns ARC wave gauges mounted to the wave boards and the related wave signal data acquisition. The AukePC/ARC software computes real-time the additional motion that the wave generator must make in order to absorb the undesired waves. This information must real-time be transferred to the wave generator control system.

For more information, see

AukePC/Process

AukePC/Process handles the processing of wave data by a set of programs. Wave data can come from laboratory instruments such as:

• Wave gauges, measuring time series of surface elevation;
• Pressure sensors, measuring time series of pressures;
• GRSM gauges, measuring time series of surface elevation and orbital velocities (two perpendicular directions) in the same location.

The input data of a AukePC/Process program may be a wave data signal obtained in an experimental facility or the result of a previous processing program. The results are shown in tabular and graphical form and are written to file. AukePC/Process has special plotting programs to make the graphs.

 In AukePC/Process there are three types of programs:

• Non directional processing, such as time domain and spectral domain wave analysis of waves yielding wave parameters (wave height, wave period, etc) and wav spectra. In addition, a program is available to separate a wave field into an incident and reflected component using the method developed by Mansard and Funke (Mansard and Funke (1980), ‘The measurement of incident and reflected spectra using a least squares method’, Proc. 17th Coastal Eng. Conf., ASCE, Sydney, pp. 154 – 172).
• Directional processing is used to process data with directional information to obtain 2D frequency-directional wave spectra.
• Auxiliary programs are available to support the processing, such as the making of graphs and tables, data conversion and computation of statistical parameters.

For more information, see.

AukePC/Measure

AukePC /Measure is a data acquisition system, comprising both hardware and software. The standard version is primarily intended to acquire data of analogue instruments, such as wave gauges, pressure sensors and GRSM’s. The operator controls AukePC/Measure via a graphical user interface. Essential functions like set-up, data acquisition and performance monitoring are supported. While data acquisition is in progress, acquired data are graphically visualised. Data is stored in (ASCII or binary).

For more information, see.

Auke purchase

Auke is available for Microsoft Windows based PCs, and it is delivered with tutorial examples and a user manual. For more information, contact info-hye@deltares.nl