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Tidal diffraction by a small island or cape, and tidal power from a coastal barrier

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2020

Chiang C. Mei*
Affiliation:
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA02139-4307, USA
*
†Email address for correspondence: ccmei@mit.edu

Abstract

The tidal waves scattered by a small island and a small cape of elliptical shape are derived by the method of matched asymptotics. The results complement the irrotational flow approximation of the near field by Proudman (Proc. Lond. Math. Soc., vol. 14, 1915, pp. 89–102). The potential for harnessing tidal power is assessed for the limiting case of a coast-connected thin dam.

Information

Type
JFM Papers
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press
Figure 0

Figure 1. Scattering amplitude away from islands of different geometries and incidence angles in a rotating sea with $f/\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}=0.5$, for $b/a=0$ (a), 0.25 (b), 0.50 (c), 0.75 (d) and 1.00 (e). Curves represent $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}_{i}=\unicode[STIX]{x03C0}$ (dash–dotted), $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}_{i}=5\unicode[STIX]{x03C0}/4$ (dashed) and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}_{i}=3\unicode[STIX]{x03C0}/2$ (solid).

Figure 1

Figure 2. Scattering amplitude away from islands of different geometries and incidence angles in a non-rotating fluid $(f=0)$, for $b/a=0$ (a), 0.25 (b), 0.50 (c), 0.75 (d) and 1.00 (e). Curves represent $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}_{i}=\unicode[STIX]{x03C0}$ (dash–dotted), $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}_{i}=5\unicode[STIX]{x03C0}/4$ (dashed) and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}_{i}=3\unicode[STIX]{x03C0}/2$ (solid).

Figure 2

Figure 3. Directional pattern of scattered Poincaré wave $|{\mathcal{A}}_{PP}|$ for a cape, for $f/\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}=0$ (a), 0.30 (b) and 0.60 (c). Direction of incident Poincaré wave: $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}_{i}=5\unicode[STIX]{x03C0}/4$. Curves represent $b/a=0$ (dash–dotted), $b/a=0.50$ (dashed) and $b/a=1.00$ (solid).

Figure 3

Figure 4. Directional pattern of scattered Poincaré wave for a cape due to incident Kelvin wave, for $f/\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}=0$ (a), 0.30 (b) and 0.60 (c). Curves represent $b/a=0.0$ (dash–dotted), $b/a=0.5$ (dashed) and $b/a=1.0$ (solid).

Figure 4

Table 1. Maximum water-level difference $|\unicode[STIX]{x0394}\unicode[STIX]{x1D702}_{0}|$ (m) and total power output $P$ (GW) for various dam lengths $a$ (km) and tidal current speeds $V=1$ and 2 $\text{m}~\text{s}^{-1}$. The coefficient product $C_{e}C_{d}$ is assumed to be 1.0.