An experimental comparison of velocities underneath focussed breaking waves

Abstract

Nonlinear wave interactions affect the evolution of steep wave groups, their breaking and the associated kinematic field. Laboratory experiments are performed to investigate the effect of the underlying focussing mechanism on the shape of the breaking wave and its velocity field. In this regard, it is found that the shape of the wave spectrum plays a substantial role. Broader underlying wave spectra leads to energetic plungers at a relatively low amplitude. For narrower spectra waves break at a higher amplitudes but with a less energetic spiller. Comparison with standard engineering methods commonly used to predict the velocity underneath extreme waves shows that, under certain conditions, the measured velocity profile strongly deviates from engineering predictions.

References in corpus (3)

• Time-Reversal Generation of Rogue Waves
• Lagrangian kinematics of steep waves up to the inception of a spilling breaker
• Non-Gaussian properties of second-order wave orbital velocity

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Rogue waves and analogies in optics and oceanography
• Dynamics of Higher-order Bright and Dark Rogue Waves in a New (2+1)-Dimensional Integrable Boussinesq Model
• A dissipative Nonlinear Schrödinger model for wave propagation in the marginal ice zone
• An energetic signature for breaking inception in surface gravity waves