Laboratory investigation of damping of gravity-capillary waves on the surface of turbulized liquid

Investigation of damping of gravity-capillary waves (GCWs) in the presence of turbulence is a classical hydrodynamic problem which has important geophysical applications, one of which is related with the problem of forming a radar and optical image of a ship wake on wavy water surface. In this work a new method for the laboratory study of surface wave damping in turbulized liquid is described and the results are presented. The damping of standing GCWs by turbulence on the water surface in a tank mounted on a vibration table is studied. GCWs and turbulence are excited using a two-frequency mode of vibration table oscillations. A high-frequency small amplitude signal is used for parametric GCW excitation; a low-frequency large amplitude signal is used for generating turbulence due to water flowing through a fixed perforated grid submerged into the tank. The coefficient of GCW damping is determined by measured threshold of parametric excitation of the waves; turbulence characteristics are determined by the PIV and PTV techniques. Dependences of GCW damping coefficients on their frequency at different turbulence intensities are obtained, estimates for turbulent viscosity are presented, and a comparison with empirical models proposed earlier is performed.