Transformation of Water Wave Spectra into Time Series of Surface Elevation

Abstract

Spectral wave modelling is widely used to simulate large-scale wind–wave processes due to its low computation cost and relatively simpler formulation, in comparison to phase-resolving or hydrodynamic models. However, some applications require a time-domain representation of sea waves. This article proposes a methodology to transform the wave spectrum into a time series of water surface elevation for applications that require a time-domain representation of ocean waves. The proposed method uses a generated phase spectrum and the inverse Fourier transform to turn the wave spectrum into a time series of water surface elevation. The consistency of the methodology is then verified. The results show that it is capable of correctly transforming the wave spectrum, and the significant wave height of the resulting time series is within 5% of that of the input spectrum.