Wind-Generated Surface Current and Waves at an Air-Water Interface
Open Access
Author:
Prabakaran, Pragnya
Area of Honors:
Mathematics
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Dr. Diane Marie Henderson, Thesis Supervisor Nathanial Patrick Brown, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
wind waves waves surface current interfacial current base flow fluid mechanics
Abstract:
At an air-water interface, when wind begins to blow above still water, it sets up an interfacial
current as well as motion in the water. We analyze a model for this situation and then look at its
stability to perturbations, which correspond to the interfacial waves. This thesis considers a model
for the wind and the resulting water motion; we then perturb it to try to understand how waves
result at the interface. The first goal is to predict the surface current as a function of wind speed
and compare these predictions with measurements taken in the wind-wave facility in the William
G. Pritchard Laboratory in the Department of Mathematics at Penn State. The second goal is to
predict the growth rate of a wave with a given wavelength and for a given wind speed.
