Experimental study of the surface oscillations induced by a shallow flow past a lateral cavity

The present work presents an experimental study in which resonant surface oscillations inside a lateral cavity are reconstructed, often denoted as se- iching, which are excited by a shallow main stream flowing past the horizontal basin. Firstly, the flow configurations that trigger transverse and/or longitu- dinal seiching are studied using pressure measurements in the corners of the cavity, which shows that a transitional Froude number exists, approximately 0.63, at which the dominant seiching mode changes from transverse to longi- tudinal seiching. For both types of resonant conditions, the surface shape is analyzed in detail using a three-dimensional particle tracking velocimetry (3D- PTV) setup. Based upon floating seeding particles, the 3D surface is recon- structed with a superior spatial resolution compared to traditional measurement techniques, which confirms the multimodal aspect of the surface oscillations.