Abstract
Real sea waves in a towing wave basin have been generated using random periodic motion of the segmented wave makers and the wave reflections of sidewalls. Theoretically, the real sea waves can be described by the superposition of many random oblique waves. This paper introduces numerical real sea wave generation in a rectangular wave basin using spectral method that uses a superposition of orthogonal functions which have to satisfy the Laplace equation. Oblique regular waves, long crested irregular waves and real sea waves were simulated and met the requirement of sidewall wave reflection and wave absorption. MLM (Maximum Likelihood Method) and Spatial Fourier Transform were used in order to obtain propagated wave direction characteristics. The estimated results proved the usefulness of the method and the performances showed reasonable directional patterns comparing with generating patterns.