RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE STUDY OP BREAKING WAVES
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Keywords

breaking waves

How to Cite

Longuet-Higgins, M. S. (1976). RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE STUDY OP BREAKING WAVES. Coastal Engineering Proceedings, 1(15), 24. https://doi.org/10.9753/icce.v15.24

Abstract

The sight and sound of breaking waves and surf is so familiar and enjoyable that we tend to forget how little we really understand about them. Why is it, that compared to other branches of wave studies our knowledge of breaking waves is so empirical and inexact? The reason must lie partly in the difficulty of finding a precise mathematical description of a fluid flow that is in general nonlinear and time-dependent. The fluid accelerations can no longer be assumed t o be small compared t o gravity, as in Stokes's theory for periodic waves and the theory of cnoidal waves in shallow water, nor is the particle velocity any longer small compared to the phase velocity. The aim of this paper is to bring together s ome recent contributions to the calculation both of steep symmetric waves and of time-dependent surface waves. These have a bearing on the behaviour of whitecaps in deep water and of surf in the breaker zone . Since spilling breakers in gently shoaling water closely resemble solitary waves, we begin with the description of solitary waves of limiting amplitude, then discuss steep waves of arbitrary height. The observed intermittency of whitecaps is discussed in terms of the energy maximum, as a function of wave steepness, In Sections 6 and 7 a simpler description of steady symmetric waves is proposed, using an asymptotic expression for the flow near the wave crest. Finally we describe a new numerical technique (MEL, or mixed Eulerian-Lagrangian) with which it has been found possible to follow the development of periodic waves past the point when overturning takes place.
https://doi.org/10.9753/icce.v15.24
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