Author(s): Guoxing Huang; Adrian Wing-Keung Law
Linked Author(s): Wing Keung, Adrian Law
Keywords: Wave-induced Drift; Experiment; Shallow water; Ursell number; Inextensible film
Abstract: The present study investigates the drift velocity of two-dimensional floating surface films by shallow water waves in the laboratory. Thin polyethylene sheets were used to simulate the inextensible oil films. The drift velocities were obtained by recording and analyzing a time sequence of images captured by a video camera. The experimental results showed that the drift velocity actually became faster at a lower water depth. If the dependency with the wave steepness was a proportional relationship, then the drift velocity should have decreased instead since the wave celerity should decrease with the lower water depth. In addition, the wave-induced drift velocity increased almost linearly with the Ursell number. For bulk estimate purpose, a best-fitting empirical equation based on linear function is introduced for oil spill trajectory prediction.
Year: 2013