THE FOCUSING OF WATER WAVES BY ELLIPTICAL SUBMERGED LENSES

The interactions between monochromatic water waves and submerged structures are examined in this paper, with the particular purpose of finding an effective way to focus wave energy in relatively small, delimited regions. The focusing of waves by submerged structures, from here referred to as submerged lenses, may be an efficient technique to increase potential wave energy and thus concentrate the source available for wave energy converters (WECs). This technique may also provide a useful tool to magnify wave amplitude near the coast, where ocean waves have lost some of their energy due to shallow water processes, consequently improving the performance of near-shore WECs. Following previous investigations that have demonstrated the advantages of elliptical lenses over other shapes like biconvex (Griffiths and Porter, 2011) and convex types (Kudo et al. 1988), elliptical shapes have been chosen in this study.