Trapped symmetric disturbances in rotating shear flows

The structure of trapped symmetric disturbances in rotating stratified shear flows is investigated theoretically. It is shown that the arrangement of the trapping region is determined by atmospheric stratification. For example, if the characteristic Brunt-Väisälä frequency is greater (smaller) than the inertial frequency, waves are trapped in the region of anticyclonic (cyclonic) velocity shear. Accordingly, in the first (second) case, the frequencies of trapped waves are smaller (greater) than the inertial frequency. The problem of finding the frequencies of trapped waves is reduced to solving the Schrödinger equation but with a more complex dependence on a spectral parameter. Exact solutions to the problem are obtained for a triangular jet and a hyperbolic shear layer.     

Propagation and trapping of inertial gravity waves in shear flows (ray theory)

The process of propagation and trapping of inertial gravity wave (IGW) packets in oceanic shear flows is studied in the geometric-optics approximation (ray theory). It is shown that wave trapping in strong stable stratification occurs in the region of anticyclonic (horizontal) velocity shear in a narrow frequency range on the left side of the inertial frequency. Beyond this range, the packet (ray) is either reflected from a cyclonic shear layer or propagates freely through the shear layer. The basic equations of ray theory are analyzed qualitatively, and analytical expressions are derived for freely propagating and trapped rays. The influence that vertical shear exerts on the ray behavior is also investigated. It is shown that two-dimensional ray focusing occurs as the velocity profile decreases with depth, so that rays concentrate along a specific latitude.     

Hyperbolic Mild Slope Equations with Inclusion of Amplitude Dispersion Effect: Random Waves

New hyperbolic mild slope equations for random waves are developed with the inclusion of amplitude dispersion. The frequency perturbation around the peak frequency of random waves is adopted to extend the equations for regular waves to random waves. The nonlinear effect of amplitude dispersion is incorporated approximately into the model by only considering the nonlinear effect on the carrier waves of random waves, which is done by introducing a representative wave amplitude for the carrier waves. The computation time is greatly saved by the introduction of the representative wave amplitude. The extension of the present model to breaking waves is also considered in order to apply the new equations to surf zone. The model is validated for random waves propagate over a shoal and in surf zone against measurements.     

Strong near-inertial oscillations in geostrophic shear in the northern South China Sea

With observational data from three Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) moorings, we detected strong near-inertial oscillations (NIO) in the continental shelf region of the northern South China Sea in July 2008. The amplitude of the near-inertial current velocity is much greater than that of diurnal and semi-diurnal tides. The power of the NIOs is strongest in the intermediate layer, relatively weak in the surface layer, and insignificant in the near-bottom layer. The spectral analysis indicates that the NIOs have a peak frequency of 0.0307 cph, which is 2% lower than the local inertial frequency, i.e., a red-shift. The near-inertial wave has an upward vertical phase velocity, which involves a downward group velocity and energy flux. The estimated vertical phase velocity is about 43 m day⁻¹, corresponding to a vertical wave length of about 58 m. The horizontal scale of the NIOs is at least hundreds of kilometers. This NIO event lasted for about 15 days after a typhoon’s passage. Given the northeastward background flow with significant horizontal shear, both Doppler shift and shear flow modulation mechanisms may be responsible for the red-shift of the observed NIOs. For the shear flow mechanism, the observed negative background vorticity and the corresponding effective Coriolis frequency reduce the lower limit of admissible frequency band for the NIOs, causing the red-shift. Meanwhile, the mooring area with the broadened frequency band acts as a wave-guide. The trapping and amplification effects lead to the relatively long sustaining period of the observed NIOs.     

指数剪切流作用下海洋立管振动特性研究

细长海洋立管在复杂来流作用下的涡激振动（VIV）是海洋工程领域备受关注的热点问题。采用双向流—固耦合方法,对立管在指数剪切来流作用下的涡激振动实施了数值仿真研究。基于均方根振幅包络图的显性模态分析发现,与线性剪切流工况相比,当流速较小时,立管模型在指数剪切流作用下振幅最大值相对较小;流速较大时,指数剪切流的非线性分布致使立管的振动响应增强。通过对立管模型均方根振幅包络峰、谷处的振动响应频率分析发现,在波峰位置处振动频率单一且较为稳定,而在相邻波谷位置处多频共存现象显著,两者有显著差异。沿管的轴向波形主要表现为驻波主导和驻波—行波混合模式,行波一般间歇发生,流速越大发生频次愈高,其在横流向的传播方向通常由高流速区段传递至低流速区段。指数剪切流作用下,沿管体轴向各截面位置处的旋涡脱落模式差异显著,高流速段尾流区的旋涡发放具有较强的周期性,涡管完整且与管轴存在一定偏离角度,低流速段蜂窝状离散涡旋较多。     

双曲余弦海脊上海啸俘获波的解析与数值研究

海啸能被大洋海脊引导以俘获波的形式沿其传播上万千米,且因其特殊的运动方式,携带巨大能量影响远场地区的港口,严重威胁海岸安全。本文首先基于线性浅水方程,推导了双曲余弦平方海脊上俘获波的波面解,其为μ阶ν次的连带勒让德函数的第一类解和第二类解的组合。进一步推导出其对应的频散关系,其中对于确定的频率ω,存在无穷多个波数k_y与之对应。采用MIKE21-BW模型,模拟了产生于海脊脊顶处的海啸在理想双曲余弦平方海脊上的传播变形过程。结果表明,小部分能量以自由先驱波进行传播,海啸波的波能大部分被海脊俘获。海脊俘获波沿着海脊方向为行进波,随着海啸波传播时间的增加,波浪在沿着海脊方向的延展范围也逐渐增大,波高逐渐减小、波的个数逐渐增加。俘获波能量主要由不同频率以相同速度传播的具有孤立波特性的波浪成分和能量主要集中在特定频率范围内的波浪成分组成。     

Trapping mechanism of submerged ridge on trans-oceanic tsunami propagation

Based on the linear shallow water equations,an analytic solution of trapped waves over a symmetric parabolicprofile submerged ridge is derived.The trapped waves act as propagating waves along the ridge and as standing waves across the ridge.The amplitude gets the maximum at the ridge top and decays gradually towards both sides.The decaying rate gets more gently with higher modes.Besides,an explicit first-order approximate dispersion relation is derived to simplify transcendental functions in the exact solution,which is useful to describe trapped waves over shallowly submerged ridges in reality.Furthermore,the trapping mechanism of the submerged ridge waveguides on the trans-oceanic tsunami propagation can be explained by the ray theory.A critical incident angle exists as a criterion to determine whether the wave is trapped.Besides,a trapped parameter γ is proposed to estimate the ratio of the energy trapped by the oceanic ridge if a tsunami is generated at its top.     

Vertical heat and salt fluxes induced by inertia-gravity internal waves on sea shelf

Free inertia-gravity internal waves are considered in a two-dimensional vertically nonuniform flow in the Boussinesq approximation. The equation for vertical velocity amplitude includes complex factors caused by the gradient of the flow velocity component transverse to the wave-propagation direction; therefore, the eigenfunction and wave frequency are complex. It is shown that the decrement of damping (imaginary correction to the frequency) of 15-min internal waves is two orders of magnitude smaller than the wave frequency; i.e., the waves weakly damp. Vertical wave fluxes of heat and salt are nonzero due to the phase shift between fluctuations of the vertical velocity and temperature (salinity) different from π 2. The vertical component of the Stokes drift speed is also nonzero and contributed into the vertical transport.     

Transmission and reflection of the Rossby waves in a stratified ocean with bottom topography

Transmission and reflection coefficients are calculated for Rossby waves incident on a bottom topography with constant slope in a continuously stratified ocean. The characteristics of the coefficients are interpreted in terms of the quasigeostrophic waves on the slope. In the parameter range where only the barotropic Rossby waves can propagate in the region outside the slope, the bottom trapped wave plays the same role as the topographic Rossby wave in a homogeneous ocean, and hence the transmission is weak unless phase matching takes place. When both of the barotropic and baroclinic Rossby waves can propagate outside the slope, the total transmission can be strong. The bottom trapped wave affects the transmission and reflection, and it leads to the possibility that the Rossby wave is transmitted as a mode different from the incident mode. When the number of the wavy modes on the slope is smaller than that of the Rossby wave modes outside the slope, strong reflection occurs.The results for an ocean with linear distribution of the squared Brunt-Väisälä frequency are compared to those in a uniformly stratified ocean. The weakening of the stratification near the bottom is almost equivalent to reducing the effect of the slope.     

旋转地球上不可压缩流体惯性重力波的频率方程

用微扰动方法对旋转地球上不可压缩流体的控制方程组进行线性化,得到了扰动解和流体界面上惯性重力波的频率方程。表面惯性重力波和惯性重力内波的相速公式都是这个更普遍的频率方程的特殊情况。     

Propagation and amplitude decay mechanisms of internal solitary waves

In this paper, a modified dynamic coherent eddy model (DCEM) of large eddy simulation is applied to study internal solitary waves in a numerical flume. The model was verified by physical experiment and applied to investigate the potential influence factors on internal wave amplitude. In addition, we discussed the energy loss of internal solitary wave as well as hydrodynamics in the propagation. The results of our study show that (1) Step-depth is the most sensitive factor on wave amplitude for the “step-pool” internal wave generation method and the wave amplitudes obey a linear increase with step depth, and the increase rate is about 0.4. (2) Wave energy loss obeys a linear decrease with the propagation distance and its loss rate of large amplitude waves is smaller than that of small amplitude waves. (3) Loss of kinetic energy in wave valley is larger than that near the interface due to relative high fluctuating frequency. (4) Discovered boundary jet-flow can intensify the bottom shear, which might be one of the mechanisms of substance transportation, and the boundary layers of jet flows are easily influenced by the adjacent waves.     

Resonant Excitation of Baroclinic Waves in the Presence of Ekman Friction

The quasi-geostrophic dynamics of disturbances of a flow with a vertical shear is described by a transfer equation for potential vorticity. Wave solutions of this equation are represented by edge baroclinic waves (modes in a discrete spectrum) and singular modes in a continuous spectrum. When frequencies of these modes coincide, the effect of resonant excitation occurs in which the amplitude of baroclinic waves increases linearly. This paper studies this effect in the presence of Ekman bottom friction. It is shown that friction suppresses linear wave growth and gives rise to baroclinic waves of finite amplitude.     

Effects of rotation on self-resonant internal gravity waves in the ocean

The Resonant Triad Model (RTM) developed in (Ibragimov, 2007), is used to study the Thorpe’s problem (Thorpe, 1997) on the existence of self-resonant internal waves, i.e., the waves for which a resonant interaction occurs at second order between the incident and reflected internal waves off slopes. The RTM represents the extension of the McComas and Bretherton’s three wave hydrostatic model (McComas and Bretherton, 1977) which ignores the effects of the earth’s rotation to the case of the non-hydrostatic analytical model involving arbitrarily large number of rotating internal waves with frequencies spanning the range of possible frequencies, i.e., between the maximum of the buoyancy frequency (vertical motion) and a minimum of the inertial frequency (horizontal motion). The present analysis is based on classification of resonant interactions into the sum, middle and difference interaction classes. It is shown in this paper that there exists a certain value of latitude, which is classified as the singular latitude, at which the coalescence of the middle and difference interaction classes occurs. Such coalescence, which apparently had passed unnoticed before, can be used to study the Thorpe’s problem on the existence of self-resonant waves. In particular, it is shown that the value of the bottom slope at which the second-order frequency and wavenumber components of the incident and reflected waves satisfy the internal wave dispersion relation can be approximated by two latitude-dependent parameters in the limiting case when latitude approaches its singular value. Since the existence of a such singular latitude is generic for resonant triad interactions, a question on application of the RTM to the modeling of enhanced mixing in the vicinity of ridges in the ocean arises.     

Inertial wave loads on horizontal cylinders: A field experiment

A long submerged horizontal circular cylinder of .90 m diameter was assembled off the beach at Reggio Calabria where the wind waves typically have significant height ranging within 0.20 and 0.40 m and dominant period within 1.8 and 2.6 s. Three ultrasonic probes recorded the waves, and two sets of pressure transducers, the first one at the cylinder and the second one in the undisturbed wave field, enabled to compare the force amplitude on the cylinder to the force amplitude on an equivalent mass of water in the undisturbed wave field (Froude-Krylov F-K force). After ten days of measurements, the experiment was repeated with a cylinder of .45 m diameter. The Keulegan-Carpenter number was within 2.5, and the wave forces proved to be inertial. The following general features emerged: (i) the force spectrum is usually very narrow even if the wave spectrum is broad; (ii) the vertical diffraction coefficient is somewhat smaller than the horizontal diffraction coefficient; (iii) the positive extremes of F_z (vertical force referred to the buoyancy force) markedly exceed the negative extremes; (iv) the pressure fluctuations induced by the highest waves at the cylinder are very similar to the measured pressure-surface displacement covariances. In each of the 580 records obtained in the course of the experiment it was found that the propagation speed reduces to about a half at the cylinder, and the amplitude of the pressure fluctuations increases of 10–15% at the upper half of the cylinder and decreases of about the same percentage at the lower half. These phenomena fully explain why the force amplitude on the cylinder is larger than the F-K force amplitude.     

Hyperbolic Mild Slope Equations with Inclusion of Amplitude Dispersion Effect： Regular Waves

A new form of hyperbolic mild slope equations is derived with the inclusion of the amphtude dispersion of nonlinear waves. The effects of including the amplitude dispersion effect on the wave propagation are discussed. Wave breaking mechanism is incorporated into the present model to apply the new equations to surf zone. The equations are solved nu- merically for regular wave propagation over a shoal and in surf zone, and a comparison is made against measurements. It is found that the inclusion of the amplitude dispersion can also improve model＇ s performance on prediction of wave heights around breaking point for the wave motions in surf zone.     

A Bingham-plastic model for fluid mud transport under waves and currents

Simplified equations of fluid mud motion, which is described as Bingham-Plastic model under waves and currents, are presented by order analysis. The simplified equations are non-linear ordinary differential equations which are solved by hybrid numerical-analytical technique. As the computational cost is very low, the effects of wave current parameters and fluid mud properties on the transportation velocity of the fluid mud are studied systematically. It is found that the fluid mud can move toward one direction even if the shear stress acting on the fluid mud bed is much smaller than the fluid mud yield stress under the condition of wave and current coexistence. Experiments of the fluid mud motion under current with fluctuation water surface are carried out. The fluid mud transportation velocity predicted by the presented mathematical model can roughly match that measured in experiments.     

Vortex-Induced Vibrations of A Long Flexible Cylinder in Linear and Exponential Shear Flows

A numerical study based on a wake oscillator model was conducted to determine the response performance of vortex-induced vibration(VIV) on a long flexible cylinder with pinned-pinned boundary conditions subjected to linear and exponential shear flows. The coupling equations of a structural vibration model and wake oscillator model were solved using a standard central finite difference method of the second order. The VIV response characteristics including the structural displacement, structural frequency, structural wavenumber, standing wave behavior,travelling wave behavior, structural velocity, lift force coefficient and transferred energy from the fluid to the structure with different flow profiles were compared. The numerical results show that the VIV displacement is a combination of standing waves and travelling waves. For linear shear flow, standing waves and travelling waves dominate the VIV response within the low-velocity and high-velocity zones, respectively. The negative values of the transferred energy only occur within the low-velocity zone. However, for exponential shear flow, travelling waves dominate the VIV response and the negative energy occurs along the entire length of the cylinder.     

Wave particle velocities measured with a Doppler current meter

A newly developed three-dimensional Doppler current meter is described and the results of preliminary field experiments are presented where simultaneous measurements of surface elevation and water velocity associated with wave orbital motion were made. The phase difference between the surface elevation and the vertical velocity measured at 1.0 and 0.45 meters below the mean water level is found to be approximately 90, in accord with the theory for surface waves of infinitesimally small amplitudes. The spectral (frequency) density distribution for velocity is also found to agree with that we would expect from the linear theory for the observed frequency distribution of surface elevation. However, the amplitude of velocity is consistently smaller (about 10 %) than that we would expect. This reduction of amplitude is more pronounced in cases where waves are high and the water depth is shallow.     

Observation of ocean current response to 1998 Hurricane Georges in the Gulf of Mexico

1 Introduction Hurricane is an extremely high wind event, which injects momentum into the oceanic mixed layer along its passage for a very short duration. If our interest is not at the surface, but in a depth away from the imme-diate surface wave influenc…     

Internal generation of waves for extended Boussinesq equations

It is studied whether the mass transport or energy transport is the proper viewpoint for internally generating waves in the extended Boussinesq equations of Nwogu [J. Waterw., Port, Coastal Ocean Eng. 119 (1993) 618–638]. Numerical solutions of the Boussinesq equations with the internal generation of sinusoidal waves show that the energy transport approach yields the required wave amplitude properly while the mass transport approach yields wave amplitude different from the required one by the ratio of phase velocity to energy velocity. The waves which pass through the wave generation point do not cause any numerical distortion while the incident waves are generated. The technique of internal generation of waves shows its capability of generating nonlinear cnoidal waves as well as linear sinusoidal waves.