Second-order coupling of numerical and physical wave tanks for 2D irregular waves. Part II: Experimental validation in two-dimensions

•Completion of the second-order coupling model becomes available for experiments.•Monochromatic, bi-chromatic, irregular wave cases and varying bathymetries are validated.•Good qualitative and quantitative evidence are demonstrated for the present method.•The model has utility to couple the numerical and physical models up to second order.

This paper provides an experimental validation of the second-order coupling theory outlined by Yang et al. (Z. Yang, S. Liu, H.B. Bingham and J. Li., 2013. Second-order coupling of numerical and physical wave tanks for 2D irregular waves. Part I: Formulation, implementation and numerical properties, submitted for publication) using 2D irregular waves. This work provides a second-order dispersive correction for the physical wavemaker signal which improves the nonlinear transfer of information between the numerical and physical models compared to the first-order method of Zhang et al. (2007). The important nonlinear parameters and numerical performance were theoretically investigated in Part I. In the present Part II, careful experimental validation is carried out using a sequence of progressively more complex analytical and numerical target waves. The results demonstrate clearly that improved performance is achieved by using the second-order correction. When controlling with a second-order coupling signal, two key points are notable: (i) The higher harmonics underlying the numerical waves are accurately captured and transferred into the physical model. (ii) The second-order behavior leads to an unwanted spurious freely propagating second harmonic that is substantially reduced when compared to an identical wave paddle operating with a first-order coupling signal. Using nonlinear regular (monochromatic), bi-chromatic and irregular wave cases as well as varying coupled wave tank bathymetries, both these aspects are verified over a broad range of wave frequencies and shown to be extensively applicable to physical wave tanks.