Air flow structures in the very close vicinity of wind generated water waves

Hubert Branger (1) , Laurent Grare (1) , William L. Peirson (2)

1 IRPHE - Institut de Recherche sur les Phénomènes Hors Equilibre
2 WRL - Water Research Laboratory

In the large wind-wave tank of IRPHE (40m long, 3m wide, 1m deep water and 1.7m high for the air, wind speed up to 14m/s) we conducted a set of experiments to measure the structure of the air flow in the very close vicinity of the water-surface above wind-generated waves. We estimated momentum transfers from air to water and we made direct measure-ments of form drag and viscous drag quantities for different conditions of wind and waves.

Mots clés: turbulence; air-sea interactions; air flow; water waves

Domaines: Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Océan, Atmosphère

Hubert Branger, Laurent Grare, William L. Peirson. Air flow structures in the very close vicinity of wind generated water waves. International Conference on Fluxes and Structures in Fluids, Jun 2013, San-Petersburg, Russia. 3pp. ⟨hal-00856102⟩