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Published January 1991 | Published
Journal Article Open

Water-wave instability induced by a drift layer

Abstract

A simple water-wave instability induced by a shear flow is re-examined, using a cubic equation first derived by Stern & Adam (1973) for a piecewise constant vorticity model. The instability criteria and the growth rate are computed. It is found that this mechanism is effective only if the surface drift velocity exceeds the minimum wave speed for capillary–gravity waves, and only if the drift-layer thickness lies within a band which depends on the wavelength and the drift velocity.

Additional Information

© 1991 Cambridge University Press. Received 2 October 1989 and in revised form 4 June 1990. The authors wish to thank the referees for constructive criticisms and references to relevant previous work. This work is supported by Office of Naval Research under Contract nos. N00014-88-C-0356 and N00014-89-J-1164.

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Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 20, 2023