Time-Frequency Characteristics of Fluctuating Pressure on the Bottom of the Stilling Basin with Step-Down Floor Based on Hilbert–Huang Transform

Fluctuating pressure is an important feature of the bottom of a stilling basin with step-down floor. To analyze the frequency domain characteristics and energy distribution of this fluctuating pressure, the Hilbert–Huang transform (HHT) method is used. First, empirical mode decomposition is performed on the pressure fluctuation signal to obtain a number of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs), and then the Hilbert transformation is performed on each IMF to obtain the Hilbert spectrum and marginal spectrum for characterizing the pressure fluctuation signal. The results show that the fluctuating pressure signal of the stilling basin with step-down floor has obvious characteristics of low frequency and large amplitude. The dominant frequencies of the head and tail of the stilling basin are very prominent, and most of the energy is concentrated below 5.0 Hz; with the increase in the relative position of the measuring point, the energy distribution in stilling basin with step-down floor changes from high-frequency component to low-frequency component. The fluctuating pressure signal of the stilling basin with step-down floor has random amplitude modulation and frequency modulation. The marginal spectrum obtained by the HHT method can obtain the local characteristics of the signal more accurately and is more suitable for processing nonlinear and nonstationary signals.