Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Malta, 16-18 July, 2012.
When considering the problem of water waves, induced by
an obstacle, in a fluid domain of finite depth, the main
assumption is generally to consider the water as an inviscid
fluid, which means that the velocity profile is not sheared but
constant upstream from the bottom up to the free-surface.
The objective of the experiments presented in this paper is
to produce a free-surface flow over an obstacle, in a hydraulic
channel, with a constant velocity profile upstream. To achieve
this, we carried out an original device. The channel, with an
obstacle lying on its bottom, is filled with a quantity of water at
rest. A drive system moves, at a constant adjustable velocity,
the bottom of the channel generating then a relative movement
of the water with respect to the obstacle. Measurements of the
wavelengths are performed and compared with that given by
the theory.
