Experimental observation of a strong mean flow induced by internal gravity waves

Abstract

We report the experimental observation of a robust horizontal mean flow induced by internal gravity waves. A wave beam is forced at the lateral boundary of a tank filled with a linearly stratified fluid initially at rest. After a transient regime, a strong jet appears in the wave beam, with horizontal recirculations outside the wave beam. We present a simple physical mechanism predicting the growth rate of the mean flow and its initial spatial structure. We find good agreement with experimental results.

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• New wave generation
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Cited by in corpus (10)

• Instabilities of Internal Gravity Wave Beams
• The energy flux spectrum of internal waves generated by turbulent convection
• Damping of quasi-2D internal wave attractors by rigid-wall friction
• Linear and nonlinear regimes of an inertial wave attractor
• Internal wave turbulence in a stratified fluid with and without eigenmodes of the experimental domain
• The long view of triadic resonance instability in finite-width internal gravity wave beams
• Particle transport induced by internal wave beam streaming in lateral boundary layers
• Mean flow generation by three-dimensional non-linear internal wave beams
• Boundary streaming by internal waves
• Laboratory observation of internal gravity wave turbulence in a three-dimensional, large-scale facility