Journal of Tropical Oceanography ›› 2019, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (1): 19-26.doi: 10.11978/2018039CSTR: 32234.14.2018039

• Orginal Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

An application of nonlinear stream function in analysis of experimental wind-wave field

Changbo JIANG1(), Yang YANG1(), Hansong TANG2   

  1. 1. School of Hydraulic Engineering, Changsha University of Science & Technology, Changsha 410114, China;
    2. Department of Civil Engineering, The City College of New York, New York 10031, USA
  • Received:2018-04-11 Revised:2018-06-22 Online:2019-01-16 Published:2019-01-16
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China (51239001)

Abstract:

The wind on the water surface can create wind waves. The exchange mechanism of momentum and energy due to the turbulence of wave current is a complicated process. Wind stress is generally used to describe this energy exchange, and can be divided into three components: shear stress, wave induced stress and turbulent stress. An effective nonlinear wave current separation method, namely, the Nonlinear Stream Function Method (NSFM), is used to qualitatively describe the momentum and energy transports between wave and current. An analytical stream function is constructed, which can effectively express nonlinear waves and satisfies the Laplace equation, the boundary condition and the kinematic boundary condition of the water surface, separating the wave-induced velocity field based on the laboratory wind-wave data. Through the cross-spectral technique, the contribution of wave-induced Reynolds stress to wind stress at different wind speed is obtained. The results are as follows. NSFM has higher accuracy and better applicability in treating wind waves under different working conditions. With the increase of wind speed, wave-induced stress decays faster along water depth, and the ratio of wave-induced stress at the free surface to the momentum transport mechanism should be gradually weakened.

Key words: wind wave, wave-current separation, stream function