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Modelling wind-induced changes to overturning wave shape

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2024

Falk Feddersen*
Affiliation:
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD, La Jolla, CA 92093-0209, USA
Kentaro Hanson
Affiliation:
Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
Wouter Mostert
Affiliation:
Department of Engineering Science, Oxford University, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PJ, UK
Adam Fincham
Affiliation:
Kelly Slater Wave Company, 3300 La Cienega Pl, Los Angeles, CA 90016, USA Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA
*
Email address for correspondence: ffeddersen@ucsd.edu

Abstract

Depth-limited overturning wave shape affects water turbulence and sediment suspension. Experiments have shown that wind affects shoaling and overturning wave shape, with uncertain mechanism. Here, we study wind effects (given by the wind Reynolds number) on solitary wave shoaling and overturning with the two-phase direct numerical simulations model Basilisk run in two dimensions on steep bathymetry for fixed wave Reynolds number and Bond number. For all wind, the propagating solitary wave sheds a two-dimensional turbulent air wake and has nearly uniform speed with minimal wave energy changes over the rapidly varying bathymetry. Wave-face slope is influenced by wind, and shoaling wave shape changes are consistent with previous studies. As overturning jet impacts, wind-dependent differences in overturn shape are quantified. The non-dimensional breakpoint location and overturn area have similar wind dependence as previous experience, whereas the overturn aspect ratio has opposite wind dependence. During shoaling, the surface viscous stresses are negligible relative to pressure. Surface tension effects are also small but grow rapidly near overturning. In a wave frame of reference, surface pressure is low in the lee and contributes 2–5 % to the velocity potential rate of change in the surface dynamic boundary condition, which, integrated over time, changes the wave shape. Reasons why the overturn aspect ratio is different than in experiment and why a stronger simulated wind is required are explored. The dramatic wind effects on overturning jet area, and thus to the available overturn potential energy, make concrete the implications of wind-induced changes to wave shape.

Information

Type
JFM Papers
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NC
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original article is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained prior to any commercial use.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press.
Figure 0

Figure 1. The simulation domain just after initialization as a function of non-dimensional horizontal $x/h_0$ and vertical $z/h_0$ coordinates. The brown region represents the bathymetry, the aqua blue is water, the air–sea interface is indicated by the black curve, and air vorticity is given by the colour bar. The deeper flat water at $x/h_0 < 30$ has depth $h_0$ such that the bed is located at $z/h_0=-1$. The shallow flat region has depth $h_s/h_0=0.371$, and the bathymetric slope connecting these two regions has slope $\beta = 0.0693$. The solitary wave initial condition parameters are $a_0/h_0 = 0.6$ and $x_0/h_0 = 15$. The height of the air domain is $h_a/h_0 = 10$. This example is for onshore wind and ${Re}^*=2400$. The air inlet and outlet boundary conditions, together with the slip upper boundary condition, are noted. The air vorticity is from the initial condition derived from the air-only precursor simulation.

Figure 1

Figure 2. Non-dimensional $x$- and time-averaged wind speed $\langle \bar {U} \rangle /C$ (see (2.15)) versus wind Reynolds number ${Re}^*$ (see (2.10)) at heights $z/h_0=6$ (blue circles) and $z/h_0=2$ (green diamonds).

Figure 2

Figure 3. The solitary wave in water (aqua blue) shoaling over the bathymetry (brown), with overlaid air vorticity as a function of horizontal $x/h_0$ and vertical $z/h_0$ coordinates for times (a,b) $\tilde {t}=14$ and (c,d) $\tilde {t}=18.30$, for (a,c) strong onshore wind ${Re}^*=2400$ and (b,d) strong offshore wind ${Re}^*=-1800$. The air–water interface is indicated by the black curve.

Figure 3

Figure 4. Statistics of solitary wave shoaling under wind versus non-dimensional time $\tilde {t}$ for ${Re}^*=2400$ and $-1800$: (a) horizontal location of peak water elevation $x_{pk}/h_0$; (b) maximum water elevation $\eta _{pk}/h_0$; (c) non-dimensional water energy $\tilde {E}_{w}$ (see (2.12)); and (d) minimum air–sea interface slope $\min (\partial \eta /\partial x)$. The time period shown ($11 < \tilde {t} < 17.9$) corresponds to solitary wave shoaling on the slope until just prior to the slope going vertical for ${Re}^*=2400$.

Figure 4

Figure 5. Overturning solitary wave (aqua blue) at the moment of overturning jet impact on the water surface, with the bathymetry (brown) and overlaid air vorticity as a function of horizontal $x/h_0$ and vertical $z/h_0$ coordinates: (a) onshore wind, ${Re}^*=2400$ and $\tilde {t}=19.13$; (b) no wind, ${Re}^*=0$ and $\tilde {t}=19.96$; and (c) offshore wind, ${Re}^*=-1800$ and $\tilde {t}=20.22$. The air–water interface is indicated by the black curve.

Figure 5

Figure 6. Overturning solitary wave (aqua blue) at the moment of overturning jet impact on the water surface, with overlaid air vorticity as a function of horizontal $x/h_0$ and vertical $z/h_0$ coordinates for the ${Re}^*=2400$ case, and definitions for the geometrical properties of the overturning wave. The air–water interface is represented by the black curve. The magenta diamond indicates the non-dimensional breakpoint location $x_{bp}/h_0$, and the yellow diamond indicates the non-dimensional breaking wave height $H_{b}/h_0$. The red curve indicates the enclosed overturn region, with area $A_{o}/h_0^2$, and the grey region indicates the overturning jet area $A_{J}/h_0^2$. The dashed red lines schematize the length $L$ and width $W$ of the overturn. The overturn orientation relative to the horizontal ($\theta _{o}$) is indicated.

Figure 6

Figure 7. Geometrical parameters of the overturning wave as a function of wind Reynolds number ${Re}^*$: (a) demeaned non-dimensional breakpoint location $\Delta x_{bp}/h_0$ (see (3.2)); (b) wave height at breaking $H_{b}/h_0$; (c) non-dimensional wave overturn area $A_{o}/H_{b}^2$; (d) overturn aspect ratio $W/L$; (e) non-dimensional wave jet area $A_{J}/H_{b}^2$; (f) overturn angle $\theta _{o}$.

Figure 7

Figure 8. Snapshots at $\tilde {t}=18.0$ of (a,b) $\tilde {\eta }$, (c,d) $\Delta \tilde {p}$, and (e,f) viscous normal $\tilde {f}_n$ and shear $\tilde {f}_s$ stresses versus $\Delta \tilde {x}$ for (a,c,e) ${Re}^*=2400$ and (b,d,f) ${Re}^*=-1800$.

Figure 8

Figure 9. Surface dynamic boundary condition terms (see (3.4)) versus $\Delta \tilde {x}$ for (a,c,e,g,i) ${Re}^*=2400$ and (b,d,f,h,j) ${Re}^*=-1800$, and from time $\tilde {t}=14.0$ (black) to $\tilde {t}=18.0$ (gold) at $\Delta \tilde {t}=1$: (a,b) $\tilde {\eta }$, (c,d) $-\tilde {C}\tilde {u}$ (solid) and $(1/2)[\tilde {u}^2 + \tilde {w}^2]$ (dashed), (e,f) the residual term $\tilde {R}$ (see (3.6)), (g,h) $\Delta \tilde {p}$, and (i,j) the surface tension term $\tilde {T}$ (see (3.5)).

Figure 9

Figure 10. Air–water interface height $\eta /h_0$ versus $\tilde {t}$ at location $x/h_0 = 37.5$ for ${Re}^*=2400$ and ${Re}^*=-1800$.

Figure 10

Figure 11. Photos of progressively shoaling and overturning solitary waves at the Surf Ranch. (a) Aerial photo of the obliquely incident solitary wave, with arrow indicating a view into the overturn. (b) Photo looking into the progressively overturning solitary wave. Note that the two photos are of different waves. Progressively overturning waves are the norm in the ocean. Photo credits: (a) Rob Grenzeback, (b) Pat Stacey.

Figure 11

Figure 12. For ${Re}^*=-1800$ at $\tilde {t}=20.22$, an overturning solitary wave (aqua blue) at the moment of overturning jet impact on the water surface, with overlaid air pressure as a function of horizontal $x/h_0$ and vertical $z/h_0$ coordinates. The air–water interface is indicated by the black curve. Note the very high pressure within the nearly enclosed overturn.

Figure 12

Figure 13. (a) Non-dimensional mean wind speed $\langle \bar {U} \rangle /C$ profiles as functions of $z/h_0$ for three ${Re}^*$, with horizontal bars indicating both time and horizontal standard deviation. (b) Time series of $x$-averaged non-dimensional wind speed $\bar {U}/C$ as functions of non-dimensional time $\tilde {t} = t(g/h_0)^{1/2}$ for three ${Re}^*$, with $z/h_0=1$. The legend in (b) also applies to (a).