Secondary current properties generated by wind-induced water waves in experimental conditions

Wind-generated water waves: two overlooked mechanisms?

From research on stratospheric dynamics there has emerged what might prove to be some useful fresh ideas about the problem of water-wave generation by wind. As pointed out in an earlier contribution (1993), water waves can be systematically amplified by two irreversible, ratchet-like mechanisms that depend on spatio-temporal inhomogeneities, such as wind gustiness and wave groupiness. Neither m...

Turbulent flow structure in experimental laboratory wind-generated gravity waves

Generalized Stability Analysis of Wind Generated Surface Water Waves

The shear instability mechanism for generation of surface water waves (Miles 1957) is re-examined in light of the nonnormality of the underlying linear operator. The associated eigenproblem and adjoint eigenproblem are solved numerically and a clarification to previous perturbation solutions of the eigenproblem discussed. The optimal excitation problem is solved in the asymptotic limit t → ∞ an...

Water waves generated by a moving bottom

Tsunamis are often generated by a moving sea bottom. This paper deals with the case where the tsunami source is an earthquake. The linearized water-wave equations are solved analytically for various sea bottom motions. Numerical results based on the analytical solutions are shown for the free-surface profiles, the horizontal and vertical velocities as well as the bottom pressure.

Bifurcation Analysis for Surface Waves Generated by Wind

We study the generation of surface waves on water as a bifurcation phenomenon. For a critical wind-speed there appear traveling wave solutions. While linear waves do not transport mass (in the mean), nonlinear effects create a shear-flow and result in a net mass transport in the direction of the wind. We derive an asymptotic formula for the average tangential velocity along the free surface. Nu...