Experimental investigation of pressure distribution on a cylinder due to the wave diffraction in a finite water depth

The experimental investigations on the pressure distribution around a large vertical cylinder fixed on a wave channel, piercing the free surface and subjected to regular waves have been carried out. Recently, considerable advances have been made in the development of analytical techniques for studying non-linear wave loading phenomena on large structures. However, there is a lack of high quality experimental data that may be used for validating the analytical and numerical solutions obtained. This paper describes the design and execution of an experiment conducted at the Hydraulics Laboratory in the Civil Engineering Department of the Istanbul Technical University. Experimental measurements of pressures at different locations are presented including comparisons with the computational results. This study showed that the experimental and computational results generally exhibited better correlation, however, the measured pressure values diverged from the computational results while approaching the free surface.