Journal article
Rogue waves in opposing currents: An experimental study on deterministic and stochastic wave trains
A Toffoli, T Waseda, H Houtani, L Cavaleri, D Greaves, M Onorato
Journal of Fluid Mechanics | CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS | Published : 2015
DOI: 10.1017/jfm.2015.132
Abstract
Interaction with an opposing current amplifies wave modulation and accelerates nonlinear wave focusing in regular wavepackets. This results in large-amplitude waves, usually known as rogue waves, even if the wave conditions are less prone to extremes. Laboratory experiments in three independent facilities are presented here to assess the role of opposing currents in changing the statistical properties of unidirectional and directional mechanically generated random wavefields. The results demonstrate in a consistent and robust manner that opposing currents induce a sharp and rapid transition from weakly to strongly non-Gaussian properties. This is associated with a substantial increase in the..
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Awarded by Swinburne University of Technology
Funding Acknowledgements
The experiments were supported by the JSPS Fellowship for Research in Japan Program, Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research of the JSPS and the International Science Linkages (ISL) Program of the Australian Academy of Science. L.C. has contributed under the EU-funded My Wave FP7-SPACE-2011-1/CP-FP project. A.T. and D.G. acknowledge Dr K. Collins and Dr M. Hann for providing velocity measurements in the wave flume and ocean wave basin at Plymouth University. T.W. was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research and Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists. M.O. and A.T. acknowledge the VDRS grant from Swinburne University of Technology. M.O. was supported by MIUR Grant PRIN 2012BFNWZ2 and ONR grant N000141010991. M.O. also acknowledges Dr B. GiuliNico for interesting discussions.