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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.
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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

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References

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