Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T01:29:49.123Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Wave breaking in the presence of wind drift and swell

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2006

O. M. Phillips  and
M. L. Banner
O. M. Phillips
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218
M. L. Banner
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218 Present address: School of Mathematics, The University of New South Wales, Kensington, New South Wales, Australia 2033.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Wind, blowing over a water surface, induces a thin layer of high vorticity in which the wind stress is supported by molecular viscosity; the magnitude of the surface drift, the velocity difference across the layer, being of the order of 3% of the wind speed. When long waves move across the surface, there is a nonlinear augmentation of the surface drift near the long-wave crests, so that short waves, superimposed on the longer ones, experience an augmented drift in these regions. This is shown to reduce the maximum amplitude that the short waves can attain when they are at the point of incipient breaking.

Theoretical estimates of the reduction are compared with measurements in wind-wave tanks by the authors and by Mitsuyasu (1966) in which long mechanically generated waves are superimposed on short wind-generated waves. The reductions measured in the energy density of the short waves by increasing the slope of the longer ones at constant wind speed are generally consistent with the predictions of the theory in a variety of cases.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 66 , Issue 4 , 11 December 1974 , pp. 625 - 640
Copyright
© 1974 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Banner, M. L. 1973 An investigation of the role of short waves and wind drift in the interaction between wind and long gravity waves. Ph.D. dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University.
Banner, M. L. & Phillips, O. M. 1974 On small scale breaking waves J. Fluid Mech. 65, 647–657.Google Scholar
Bole, J. B. & Hsu, E. Y. 1967 Response of gravity water waves to wind excitation. Stanford University Dept. Civil Engng Tech. Rep. no. 79.Google Scholar
Lamb, H. 1953 Hydrodynamics. Cambridge University Press.
Longuet-Higgins, M. S. & Stewart, R. W. 1960 Changes in the form of short gravity waves on long wind waves and tidal currents J. Fluid Mech. 8, 565–583.Google Scholar
Mitsuyasu, H. 1966 Interactions between water waves and wind (I) Rep. Res. Inst. Appl. Mech., Kyushu University, 14, 67–88.Google Scholar
Phillips, O. M. 1968 The Dynamics of the Upper Ocean. Cambridge University Press.
Wu, J. 1968 Laboratory studies of wind–wave interactions J. Fluid Mech. 34, 91–111.Google Scholar