Influence of following, regular and irregular long waves on wind-wave growth with fetch: an experimental study

Author(s):  
Antoine Villefer ◽  
Michel Benoit ◽  
Damien Violeau ◽  
Christopher Luneau ◽  
Hubert Branger

AbstractA series of experiments were conducted in a wind-wave tank facility in Marseilles (France) to study the effects of preexisting swell conditions (represented by long mechanically-generated waves) on wind-wave growth with fetch. Both monochromatic and irregular (JONSWAP-type) long wave conditions with different values of wave steepness have been generated in the presence of a constant wind forcing, for several wind velocities. A spectral analysis of temporal wave signals combined with airflow measurements allowed to study the evolution of both wave systems with the aim of identifying the interaction mechanisms transportable to prototype scale. In particular, a specific method is used to separate the two wave systems in the measured bimodal spectra. In fetch-limited conditions, pure wind-wave growth is in accordance with anterior experiments, but differs from the prototype scale in terms of energy and frequency variations with fetch. Monochromatic long waves are shown to reduce the energy of the wind-waves significantly, as it was observed in anterior laboratory experiments. The addition of JONSWAP-type long waves instead results in a downshift of the wind-wave peak frequency but no significant energy reduction. Overall, it is observed that the presence of long waves affects the wind-wave energy and frequency variations with fetch. Finally, in the presence of JONSWAP-type long waves, variations of wind-wave energy and peak frequency with fetch appear in close agreement with the wind-wave growth observed at prototype scale both in terms of variations and nondimensional magnitude.

1976 ◽  
Vol 1 (15) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Shan-Hwei Ou ◽  
Frederick L.W. Tang

Influence of long wave on the wave height distribution of wind waves was studied through the laboratory experiment. Experiments were conducted in a wind-wave tank where the wind waves were generated by a wind blower and the long waves were developed by an oscillating pendulum type wave generator. The wave height distribution of the wind waves over long wave is slightly different from the Rayleigh distribution in the small steepness of long wave. The ratios between the average of highest l/n-th waves vary with the steepness of long waves. The magnitude and the location of the spectral peak of wind waves are altered. The amount of the attenuation of wind wave energy is larger than the results of Mitsuyasu (1966).


2011 ◽  
Vol 669 ◽  
pp. 178-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELODIE GAGNAIRE-RENOU ◽  
MICHEL BENOIT ◽  
SERGEI I. BADULIN

Extensive numerical simulations of fetch-limited growth of wind-driven waves are analysed within two approaches: a ‘traditional’ wind-speed scaling first proposed by Kitaigorodskii (Bull. Acad. Sci. USSR, Geophys. Ser., Engl. Transl., vol. N1, 1962, p. 105) in the early 1960s and an alternative weakly turbulent scaling developed recently by Badulin et al. (J. Fluid Mech.591, 2007, 339–378). The latter one uses spectral fluxes of wave energy, momentum and action as physical scales of the problem and allows for advanced qualitative and quantitative analysis of wind-wave growth and features of air–sea interaction. In contrast, the traditional approach is shown to be descriptive rather than proactive. Numerical simulations are conducted on the basis of the Hasselmann kinetic equation for deep-water waves in a wide range of wind speeds from 5 to 30 m s −1 and for the ideal case of fetch-limited growth: permanent wind blowing perpendicularly to a straight coastline. Two different wave input functions, Sin, and two methods for calculating the nonlinear transfer term Snl (Gaussian quadrature method, or GQM, a quasi-exact method based on the use of Gaussian quadratures, and the discrete interaction approximation, or DIA) are used in the simulations. Comparison of the corresponding results firstly shows the relevance of the analysis of wind-wave growth in terms of the proposed weakly turbulent scaling, and secondly, allows us to highlight some critical points in the modelling of wind-generated waves. Three stages of wind-wave development corresponding to qualitatively different balance of the source terms, Sin, Sdiss and Snl, are identified: initial growth, growing sea and fully developed sea. Validity of the asymptotic weakly turbulent approach for the stage of growing wind sea is determined by the dominance of nonlinear transfers, which results in a rigid link between spectral fluxes and wave energy. This stage of self-similar growth is investigated in detail and presented as a consequence of three sub-stages of qualitatively different coupling of air flow and growing wind waves. The key self-similarity parameter of the asymptotic theory is estimated to be αss = 0.68 ± 0.1.Further prospects of wind-wave modelling in the context of the presented weakly turbulent scaling are discussed.


2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (10) ◽  
pp. 2129-2139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naohisa Takagaki ◽  
Satoru Komori ◽  
Mizuki Ishida ◽  
Koji Iwano ◽  
Ryoichi Kurose ◽  
...  

AbstractIt is important to develop a wave-generation method for extending the fetch in laboratory experiments, because previous laboratory studies were limited to the fetch shorter than several dozen meters. A new wave-generation method is proposed for generating wind waves under long-fetch conditions in a wind-wave tank, using a programmable irregular-wave generator. This new method is named a loop-type wave-generation method (LTWGM), because the waves with wave characteristics close to the wind waves measured at the end of the tank are reproduced at the entrance of the tank by the programmable irregular-wave generator and the mechanical wave generation is repeated at the entrance in order to increase the fetch. Water-level fluctuation is measured at both normal and extremely high wind speeds using resistance-type wave gauges. The results show that, at both wind speeds, LTWGM can produce wind waves with long fetches exceeding the length of the wind-wave tank. It is observed that the spectrum of wind waves with a long fetch reproduced by a wave generator is consistent with that of pure wind-driven waves without a wave generator. The fetch laws between the significant wave height and the peak frequency are also confirmed for the wind waves under long-fetch conditions. This implies that the ideal wind waves under long-fetch conditions can be reproduced using LTWGM with the programmable irregular-wave generator.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 623
Author(s):  
Christian Kharif ◽  
Malek Abid

The generation of wind waves at the surface of a pre-existing underlying vertically sheared water flow of constant vorticity is considered. Emphasis is put on the role of the vorticity in water on wind-wave generation. The amplitude growth rate increases with the vorticity except for quite old waves. A limit to the wave energy growth is found in the case of negative vorticity, corresponding to the vanishing of the growth rate.


2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (10) ◽  
pp. 2484-2496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabien Leckler ◽  
Fabrice Ardhuin ◽  
Charles Peureux ◽  
Alvise Benetazzo ◽  
Filippo Bergamasco ◽  
...  

AbstractThe energy level and its directional distribution are key observations for understanding the energy balance in the wind-wave spectrum between wind-wave generation, nonlinear interactions, and dissipation. Here, properties of gravity waves are investigated from a fixed platform in the Black Sea, equipped with a stereo video system that resolves waves with frequency f up to 1.4 Hz and wavelengths from 0.6 to 11 m. One representative record is analyzed, corresponding to young wind waves with a peak frequency fp = 0.33 Hz and a wind speed of 13 m s−1. These measurements allow for a separation of the linear waves from the bound second-order harmonics. These harmonics are negligible for frequencies f up to 3 times fp but account for most of the energy at higher frequencies. The full spectrum is well described by a combination of linear components and the second-order spectrum. In the range 2fp to 4fp, the full frequency spectrum decays like f−5, which means a steeper decay of the linear spectrum. The directional spectrum exhibits a very pronounced bimodal distribution, with two peaks on either side of the wind direction, separated by 150° at 4fp. This large separation is associated with a significant amount of energy traveling in opposite directions and thus sources of underwater acoustic and seismic noise. The magnitude of these sources can be quantified by the overlap integral I(f), which is found to increase sharply from less than 0.01 at f = 2fp to 0.11 at f = 4fp and possibly up to 0.2 at f = 5fp, close to the 0.5π value proposed in previous studies.


Author(s):  
V. G. Polnikov ◽  
G. A. Baidakov ◽  
Yu. I. Troitskaya

The aim of the work is to obtain estimates and parameterization of the dissipation rate of the turbulence kinetic energy of (TKE-dissipation) in the upper water layer, induced by the presence of wind waves at the surface. For this purpose, data from the laboratory measurements of the wind waves and three components of currents at six horizons in the upper water layer and four different winds, performed in the wind-wave channel of IAP RAS [1, 2], were used. It was established that for a majority of horizons, the frequency spectra, SUz( f ), for the vertical component of the flow velocity, Uz, induced by wind and waves, have the Kolmogorov-type ranges of the kind: Using the algorithms described in [3, 4], this fact allows us to obtain estimates of the TKE-dissipation at the corresponding horizons, and then establish the dependence of on the friction velocity, u*, the height of waves at the surface, a0, the peak frequency of the spectrum, p, and the depth of the horizon, z. The analysis of the obtained results allows (for the available data) to propose a parameterization of the form 0.00025 for which a physical interpretation is proposed.


Author(s):  
Alex Ayet ◽  
Bertrand Chapron

AbstractWhen wind blows over the ocean, short wind-waves (of wavelength smaller than 10 m) are generated, rapidly reaching an equilibrium with the overlying turbulence (at heights lower than 10 m). Understanding this equilibrium is key to many applications since it determines (i) air–sea fluxes of heat, momentum and gas, essential for numerical models; (ii) energy loss from wind to waves, which regulates how swell is generated and how energy is transferred to the ocean mixed layer and; (iii) the ocean surface roughness, visible from remote sensing measurements. Here we review phenomenological models describing this equilibrium: these models couple a turbulence kinetic energy and wave action budget through several wave-growth processes, including airflow separation events induced by breaking waves. Even though the models aim at reproducing measurements of air–sea fluxes and wave growth, some of the observed variability is still unexplained. Hence, after reviewing several state-of-the-art phenomenological models, we discuss recent numerical experiments in order to provide hints about future improvements. We suggest three main directions, which should be addressed both through dedicated experiments and theory: (i) a better quantification of the variability wind-wave growth and of the role played by the modulation of short and breaking wind-waves by long wind-waves; (ii) an improved understanding of the imprint of wind-waves on turbulent coherent structures and; (iii) a quantification of the interscale interactions for a realistic wind-wave sea, where wind-and-wave coupling processes coexist at multiple time and space scales.


Author(s):  
SABRINA AGNESI ◽  
ALDO ANNUNZIATELLIS ◽  
ROBERTO INGHILESI ◽  
GIULIA MΟ ◽  
ARIANNA ORASI

The study aims to investigate the relationship between the presence of rhodolith beds and the effect on the shelf bottom boundary layer due to the action of surface wind waves. The study area is situated off-shore and north-west of Elba Island in the Western Mediterranean Sea, an area known to be characterized by rhodolith beds. A binomial logistic regression model is used in order to analyse the relationship between wind-wave energy at sea bottom, bathymetry and rhodolith bed occurrence. The results indicate a positive correlation between rhodolith bed occurrence and wave energy, while the relation with bathymetry is weaker in all the trials. The wave energy confidence interval associated to the rhodolith bed probability is also estimated, thereby informing on wind wave energy values required for the modelling of this particular benthic habitat in off-shore shelf areas.


2007 ◽  
Vol 591 ◽  
pp. 339-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
SERGEI I. BADULIN ◽  
ALEXANDER V. BABANIN ◽  
VLADIMIR E. ZAKHAROV ◽  
DONALD RESIO

The theory of weak turbulence developed for wind-driven waves in theoretical works and in recent extensive numerical studies concludes that non-dimensional features of self-similar wave growth (i.e. wave energy and characteristic frequency) have to be scaled by internal wave-field properties (fluxes of energy, momentum or wave action) rather than by external attributes (e.g. wind speed) which have been widely adopted since the 1960s. Based on the hypothesis of dominant nonlinear transfer, an asymptotic weakly turbulent relation for the total energy ϵ and a characteristic wave frequency ω* was derived The self-similarity parameter αss was found in the numerical duration-limited experiments and was shown to be naturally varying in a relatively narrow range, being dependent on the energy growth rate only.In this work, the analytical and numerical conclusions are further verified by means of known field dependencies for wave energy growth and peak frequency downshift. A comprehensive set of more than 20 such dependencies, obtained over almost 50 years of field observations, is analysed. The estimates give αss very close to the numerical values. They demonstrate that the weakly turbulent law has a general value and describes the wave evolution well, apart from the earliest and full wave development stages when nonlinear transfer competes with wave input and dissipation.


1978 ◽  
Vol 85 (4) ◽  
pp. 705-730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hisashi Mitsuyasu ◽  
Kunio Rikiishi

Laboratory measurements have been made of the one-dimensional spectra of the duration-limited wind waves which are generated when a wind abruptly begins to blow over a water surface, maintaining a constant speed during the succeeding period of time. The duration dependences of the wave energy E and the spectral peak frequency fm determined from the measured spectra are slightly different from those inferred from the fetch dependences of these quantities. The normalized spectra of the duration-limited wind waves are also slightly different from those of fetch-limited wind waves: the concentration of the normalized spectral energy near the spectral peak frequency is smaller, in many cases, for the duration-limited wind waves than for fetch-limited wind waves. The exponential growth rates β of the duration-limited wind-wave spectra are generally larger than those of fetch-limited wind-wave spectra. Furthermore, both for the duration-limited wind waves and for fetch-limited wind waves the exponential growth rate has a behaviour which is different from the empirical formula of Snyder & Cox (1966). A new empirical formula for the growth rate of the wave spectrum is proposed, from which the empirical formula of Snyder & Cox (1966) can be derived as a special case. Agreement between the new empirical formula and the experimental results is satisfactory for fetch-limited wave spectra, but is confined to the qualitative features for the duration-limited wave spectra.


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