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Title

Wave breaking in directional fields

Author(s)

Babanin, A. V.;  Waseda, T.;  Kinoshita, T.;  Toffoli, A.

Abstract

Wave breaking is observed in a laboratory experiment with waves of realistic average steepness and directional spread. It is shown that modulational-instability mechanism is active in such circumstances, and can lead to the breaking. Experiments were conducted in the directional wave tank of the University of Tokyo, and the mechanically-generated wave fields consisted of a primary wave with sidebands in the frequency domain, with continuous directional distribution in the angular domain. Initial steepness of the primary wave and sidebands, as well as the width of directional distributions varied in a broad range, in order to determine the combination of steepness/directional-spread properties which separate modulational-instability breaking from the linear-focusing breaking.

Publication type

Journal article

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences

Source

Journal of Physical Oceanography, Vol. 41, no. 1 (Jan 2011), pp. 145-156

Publication year

2011

FOR Code(s)

0405 Oceanography

Keyword(s)

Oceanography;  Waves

Publisher

American Meteorological Society

ISSN

0022-3670

Publisher URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2010JPO4455.1

Copyright

Copyright © 2010 American Meteorological Society. The published version of the paper is reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.

Research Projects

Oceanic conditions within extreme tropical cyclones, Australian Research Council grant number LP0883888
Wave-induced upper-ocean mixing, Australian Research Council grant number DP1093517

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