Artificial waves are human-made

waves Waves most often refers to: *Waves, oscillations accompanied by a transfer of energy that travel through space or mass. * Wind waves, surface waves that occur on the free surface of bodies of water. Waves may also refer to: Music * Waves (ban ...

usually created on a specially designed surface or in a

pool Pool may refer to: Water pool * Swimming pool, usually an artificial structure containing a large body of water intended for swimming * Reflecting pool, a shallow pool designed to reflect a structure and its surroundings * Tide pool, a rocky pool ...

Making waves

{{Further, Mechanical wave

Surface wave In physics, a surface wave is a mechanical wave that propagates along the Interface (chemistry), interface between differing media. A common example is gravity waves along the surface of liquids, such as ocean waves. Gravity waves can also occu ...

s can be created by any moving object displacing fluid:

turbine A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced by a turbine can be used for generating e ...

blades, paddles, a hand, a flung stone, etc. Each pulse of water (or

crest Crest or CREST may refer to: Buildings *The Crest (Huntington, New York), a historic house in Suffolk County, New York *"The Crest", an alternate name for 63 Wall Street, in Manhattan, New York *Crest Castle (Château Du Crest), Jussy, Switzerla ...

) pushed outward from the disturbance leaves a space (or trough) behind it which causes another, smaller pulse to follow: thus a thrown stone's single impact causes a series of ripples. Larger waves can be built up if a series of movements are timed to reinforce waves' motion, much like a person sliding back and forth in a bathtub. Boundaries and obstacles also shape waves by concentrating or dissipating some of the wave's energy. When fluid flows over a surface which diverts it upward, this flow can rise above the rest of the fluid in a

standing wave In physics, a standing wave, also known as a stationary wave, is a wave that oscillates in time but whose peak amplitude profile does not move in space. The peak amplitude of the wave oscillations at any point in space is constant with respect ...

which remains in one place while the flow lasts. An example of a natural standing wave may be found in swift-flowing

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...

s, downstream from a boulder in the stream bed.

Artificial reef An artificial reef is a human-created underwater structure, typically built to promote marine life in areas with a generally featureless bottom, to control erosion, block ship passage, block the use of trawling nets, or improve surfing. Many re ...

s can also be placed into natural wave environments to enhance the quality of the incoming

breaking wave In fluid dynamics, a breaking wave or breaker is a wave whose amplitude reaches a critical level at which large amounts of wave energy transform into Wave turbulence, turbulent kinetic energy. At this point, simple physical models that describ ...

for

surfing Surfing is a surface water sport in which an individual, a surfer (or two in tandem surfing), uses a board to ride on the forward section, or face, of a moving wave of water, which usually carries the surfer towards the shore. Waves suitabl ...

. Wave focusing areas can build up wave power and height prior to breaking, and breaking surfaces then trip the wave up to make it break; the surfing surface then carries the breaking wave along an angle that maximises its value for surfing.

Applications

In a

wave pool A wave pool is a swimming pool in which there are artificially generated, large waves, similar to those of the ocean. Wave pools are often a major feature of water parks, both indoors and outdoors, as well as some leisure centres. History T ...

water is pushed out of an opening with enough force to create a wave-like shape. Riders can ride this type of wave on a regular

surfboard A surfboard is a narrow plank used in surfing. Surfboards are relatively light, but are strong enough to support an individual standing on them while riding an ocean wave. They were invented in ancient Hawaii, where they were known as ''papa he'e ...

. Wave pools go as far back as the 19th Century, as famous fantasy castle builder King Ludwig of Bavaria electrified a lake to create breaking waves. In 1929, a Pathe Pictorial there is film of "Indoor Surfers" frolicking in small, artificially-generated waves in a swimming pool in Munich, Germany. The waves were created by agitators which pushed waves through the diving area and into a shallow area - where kids were bodysurfing little waves: "This is the new kind of swimming bath that is becoming the rage of Germany," one of the captions reads. "No more placid waters for bathers - the mechanism behind the netting keeps everything moving." In 1939, a public swimming pool in Wembley, England was equipped with machines that created wavelets. Not for riding, but to approximate the soothing ebb and flowing motion of the ocean. Artificial waves created on a designed surface, by water shot over the surface at a high speed to create a wave, are ridden with a short board about the length of a

wakeboard Wakeboarding is a water sport in which the rider, standing on a wakeboard (a board with foot bindings), is towed behind a motorboat across its wake and especially up off the crest in order to perform aerial maneuvers. A hallmark of wakeboardin ...

. With

wakesurfing Wakesurfing is a water sport in which a rider trails behind a boat, riding the boat's wake without being directly pulled by the boat. After getting up on the wake, typically by use of a tow rope, the wakesurfers will drop the rope, and ride the ...

, which is derived from wakeboarding, it is possible to surf a wave created by a boat without being strapped on to the board and without being towed by a rope. With wakeboarding, the rider is strapped on to the board to prevent the board from flying out under the rider's feet and the rider is towed by a rope without surfing a wave. The "standing wave" or "sheet wave" type of artificial wave was developed in the 1980s by

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

real estate attorney Tom Lochtefeld who was a partner in the development of

Raging Waters Raging Waters are a chain of four water theme parks in Sacramento, San Dimas, San Jose, California, and Sydney, Australia. The parks are operated by Palace Entertainment and owned by its parent company Parques Reunidos, but they each contain d ...

water parks in San Dimas, San Jose and Salt Lake City. A surfer from La Jolla, Lochtefeld had a vision of creating water park attractions that were as exciting as riding waves in the ocean, and in 1988 he patented "A wave-forming generator for generating inclined surfaces on a contained body of water." The untechnical, proprietary term is "sheet wave." Rather than pulse a rapidly deteriorating wave of energy through big pools of water, Lochtefeld’s "new wave" flowed water over a stationary surface - in an enclosed, transportable area measured in square feet, not acre feet. The first Wave Loch FlowRider opened at the Schlitterbahn, in Texas in 1991. In 1993, Lochtefeld built a larger, curling FlowBarrel sheet wave at the Summerland resort in Bo, Norway. The first barreling wave pool ever open to the public was developed by Lochtefeld’s Wave House restaurant and music lifestyle centers. The first Wave House opened in Durban, South Africa in 2001, and followed by San Diego, CA (2005), Santiago Chile (2008), and Singapore (2009). WaveLoch company has sold hundreds of FlowRider sheet wave machines around the world - from water parks to Royal Caribbean cruise ships. Dr Peter Killen was the first to develop a continuously breaking, oblique, stationary wave for the study of wave riding. The work was published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics in 1976.

Making waves

Applications

See also