Experimental study on the evolution of Peregrine breather with uniform-depth adverse currents

B. Liao, Y. Ma, X. Ma, and G. Dong
Phys. Rev. E 97, 053102 – Published 7 May 2018

Abstract

A series of laboratory experiments were performed to study the evolution of Peregrine breather (PB) in a wave flume in finite depth, and wave trains were initially generated in a region of quiescent water and then propagated into an adverse current region for which the current velocity strength gradually increased from zero to an approximately stable value. The PB is often considered as a prototype of oceanic freak waves that can focus wave energy into a single wave packet. In the experiment, the cases were selected with the relative water depths k0h (k0 is the wave number in quiescent water and h is the water depth) varying from 3.11 through 8.17, and the initial wave steepness k0a0 (a0 is the background wave amplitude) ranges between 0.065 and 0.120. The experimental results show the persistence of the breather evolution dynamics even in the presence of strong opposing currents. We have shown that the characteristic spectrum of the PB persists even on strong currents, thus making it a viable characteristic for prediction of freak waves. It was also found that the adverse currents tend to shift the focusing point upstream compared to the cases without currents. Furthermore, it was found that uniform-depth adverse currents can reduce the breather extension in time domain.

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  • Received 31 January 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.97.053102

©2018 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

  1. Physical Systems
Fluid Dynamics

Authors & Affiliations

B. Liao, Y. Ma, X. Ma*, and G. Dong

  • State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116023, China

  • *maxzh@dlut.edu.cn

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Issue

Vol. 97, Iss. 5 — May 2018

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