The transition from density-driven to wave-dominated isolated flows

1998 ◽  
Vol 361 ◽  
pp. 253-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
RICHARD MANASSEH ◽  
CHANG-YUN CHING ◽  
HARINDRA J. S. FERNANDO

An isolated fluid mass travelling horizontally in a stratified layer is a phenomenon described alternatively as a detached gravity-current head or a strongly nonlinear solitary wave. A key feature of this flow is the transport of mass. Laboratory experiments examine the transition in time from a regime in which the flow is density driven, to one in which it is wave dominated. A simple means of creating this transitional regime, an isolated flow that exhibits both density and wave effects, is achieved by dropping a thermal into a linearly stratified layer. This transitional regime is called an ‘isolated propagating flow’. Parameters for which the transitional regime occurs are identified. Particle-tracking studies reveal the vertical flow structure. There is an upper zone that is wave dynamical, and a lower zone in which transport of mass occurs. The transported mass slowly leaks out, until the phenomenon resembles a weakly nonlinear solitary wave. The experiments mimic a thunderstorm microburst impacting a temperature inversion, which has aviation safety implications. In the ocean, cracks in the ice cap (polar leads) cause similar flows impacting the thermocline.

Author(s):  
Yurii I. Shokin ◽  
Alexander D. Rychkov ◽  
Gayaz S. Khakimzyanov ◽  
Leonid B. Chubarov

AbstractIn the present paper we study features and abilities of the combined TVD+SPH method relative to problems of numerical simulation of long waves runup on a shore within the shallow water theory. The results obtained by this method are compared to analytic solutions and to the data of laboratory experiments. Examples of successful application of the TVD+SPH method are presented for the case of study of runup processes for weakly nonlinear and strongly nonlinear waves, and also for


2016 ◽  
Vol 804 ◽  
pp. 201-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tsubasa Kodaira ◽  
Takuji Waseda ◽  
Motoyasu Miyata ◽  
Wooyoung Choi

Internal solitary waves in a system of two fluids, silicone oil and water, bounded above by a free surface are studied both experimentally and theoretically. By adjusting an extra volume of silicone oil released from a reservoir, a wide range of amplitude waves are generated in a wave tank. Wave profiles as well as wave speeds are measured using multiple wave probes and are then compared with both the weakly nonlinear Korteweg–de Vries (KdV) models and the strongly nonlinear Miyata–Choi–Camassa (MCC) models. As the density difference between the two fluids in the experiment is relatively small (approximately 14 %), but non-negligible, special attention is paid to the effect of the boundary condition at the top surface. The nonlinear models valid for rigid-lid (RL) and free-surface (FS) boundary conditions are considered separately. It is found that the solitary wave of the FS model for a given amplitude is consistently narrower than that of the RL model and it propagates at a slightly lower speed. Due to strong nonlinearity in the internal-wave motion, the weakly nonlinear KdV models fail to describe the measured internal solitary wave profiles of intermediate and large wave amplitudes. The strongly nonlinear MCC-FS model agrees better with the measurements than the MCC-RL model, which indicates that the free-surface boundary condition at the top surface is crucial in describing the internal solitary waves in the experiment correctly. Leaving the top surface free in the experiment allows us to observe small and relatively short wave packets on the top surface, particularly when the amplitude of the internal solitary wave is large. Once excited, the wave packet is located above the front half of the internal solitary wave and propagates with a speed close to that of the internal solitary wave underneath. A simple resonance mechanism between short surface waves and long internal waves without and with nonlinear effects is examined to estimate the characteristic wavelength of modulated short surface waves, which is found to be in good agreement with the observed wavelength when nonlinearity is taken into account. Using ray theory, the evolution of short surface waves in the presence of a background current induced by an internal solitary wave is also investigated to examine the location of the modulated surface wave packet.


2014 ◽  
Vol 750 ◽  
pp. 372-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas K. Lowman ◽  
M. A. Hoefer ◽  
G. A. El

AbstractThe free interface separating an exterior, viscous fluid from an intrusive conduit of buoyant, less viscous fluid is known to support strongly nonlinear solitary waves due to a balance between viscosity-induced dispersion and buoyancy-induced nonlinearity. The overtaking, pairwise interaction of weakly nonlinear solitary waves has been classified theoretically for the Korteweg–de Vries equation and experimentally in the context of shallow water waves, but a theoretical and experimental classification of strongly nonlinear solitary wave interactions is lacking. The interactions of large amplitude solitary waves in viscous fluid conduits, a model physical system for the study of one-dimensional, truly dissipationless, dispersive nonlinear waves, are classified. Using a combined numerical and experimental approach, three classes of nonlinear interaction behaviour are identified: purely bimodal, purely unimodal, and a mixed type. The magnitude of the dispersive radiation due to solitary wave interactions is quantified numerically and observed to be beyond the sensitivity of our experiments, suggesting that conduit solitary waves behave as ‘physical solitons’. Experimental data are shown to be in excellent agreement with numerical simulations of the reduced model. Experimental movies are available with the online version of the paper.


2009 ◽  
Vol 629 ◽  
pp. 73-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
WOOYOUNG CHOI ◽  
RICARDO BARROS ◽  
TAE-CHANG JO

The strongly nonlinear long-wave model for large amplitude internal waves in a two-layer system is regularized to eliminate shear instability due to the wave-induced velocity jump across the interface. The model is written in terms of the horizontal velocities evaluated at the top and bottom boundaries instead of the depth-averaged velocities, and it is shown through local stability analysis that internal solitary waves are locally stable to perturbations of arbitrary wavelengths if the wave amplitudes are smaller than a critical value. For a wide range of depth and density ratios pertinent to oceanic conditions, the critical wave amplitude is close to the maximum wave amplitude and the regularized model is therefore expected to be applicable to the strongly nonlinear regime. The regularized model is solved numerically using a finite-difference method and its numerical solutions support the results of our linear stability analysis. It is also shown that the solitary wave solution of the regularized model, found numerically using a time-dependent numerical model, is close to the solitary wave solution of the original model, confirming that the two models are asymptotically equivalent.


2007 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Sakai ◽  
L. G. Redekopp

Abstract. Models describing the evolution of long internal waves are proposed that are based on different polynomial approximations of the exact expression for the phase speed of uni-directional, fully-nonlinear, infinitely-long waves in the two-layer model of a density stratified environment. It is argued that a quartic KdV model, one that employs a cubic polynomial fit of the separately-derived, nonlinear relation for the phase speed, is capable of describing the evolution of strongly-nonlinear waves with a high degree of fidelity. The marginal gains obtained by generating higher-order, weakly-nonlinear extensions to describe strongly-nonlinear evolution are clearly demonstrated, and the limitations of the quite widely-used quadratic-cubic KdV evolution model obtained via a second-order, weakly-nonlinear analysis are assessed. Data are presented allowing a discriminating comparison of evolution characteristics as a function of wave amplitude and environmental parameters for several evolution models.


2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan J. Lowe

Abstract Laboratory experiments were performed in which an intrusive gravity current was observed using shadowgraph and particle tracking methods. The intrusion was generated in a two-layer fluid with a sharp interface by mixing the fluid behind a vertical lock-gate and then suddenly withdrawing the gate from the tank. The purpose of the experiments is to determine the structure of the velocity field inside the intrusion as well as the stability characteristics of the interface. Soon after the removal of the lock-gate the speed of the front of the intrusive gravity current reached a constant speed. The observed structure of the flow inside the intrusion shows a “head region” where the flow is nearly uniform, followed by a region of intense mixing and high velocities and finally followed by another region of fairly uniform velocity with a speed slightly faster than the front speed. The results show that the maximum centerline velocity is about 50% greater than the front speed and corresponds to the position in the intrusion where the strongest Kelvin- Helmholtz billows form. Closer to the front, the relative flow within the head is weak, which explains why Benjamin’s (1968) energy-conserving gravity current theory accurately predicts the behavior of dissipative gravity currents.


2019 ◽  
Vol 176 ◽  
pp. 211-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui You ◽  
Guanghua He ◽  
Jiadong Wang ◽  
Pengfei Liu

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (03) ◽  
pp. 1850017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aly R. Seadawy

The problem formulations of models for three-dimensional weakly nonlinear shallow water waves regime in a stratified shear flow with a free surface are studied. Traveling wave solutions are generated by deriving the nonlinear higher order of nonlinear evaluation equations for the free surface displacement. We obtain the velocity potential and pressure fluid in the form of traveling wave solutions of the obtained nonlinear evaluation equation. The obtained solutions and the movement role of the waves of the exact solutions are new travelling wave solutions in different and explicit form such as solutions (bright and dark), solitary wave, periodic solitary wave elliptic function solutions of higher-order nonlinear evaluation equation.


1998 ◽  
Vol 167 ◽  
pp. 151-154
Author(s):  
Y.D. Zhugzhda ◽  
V.M. Nakariakov

AbstractKorteweg-de Vries equations for slow body and torsional weakly nonlinear Alfvén waves in twisted magnetic flux tubes are derived. Slow body solitons appear as a narrowing of the tube in a low β plasma and widening of the tube, when β ≫ 1. Alfvén torsional solitons appear as a widening (β > 1) and narrowing (β < 1) of the tube, where there is a local increase of tube twisting. Two scenarios of nonlinear dissipation of strongly nonlinear waves in twisted flux tubes are proposed.


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