Publication Date:
1982-12-01
Description:
Observations of inertial waves generated by uniform horizontal flow over ridges and truncated axisymmetric obstacles in a homogeneous fluid rotating about a vertical axis are discussed and compared with linear theory. The dependence of the flow on obstacle shape, Ro, H, E and e is investigated. Here Ro = U/2ΩL is the Rossby number, H = Ro(D/L), E = v/2ΩL2 is the Ekman number, and e = h/L is the non-dimensional height of the obstacle, where U is the basic velocity Ω is the angular frequency, L is a streamwise length, D is the depth of the fluid, h is the height of theobstacle, and v is the kinematic viscosity. Previous linear analysis of this problem has been for the limit H fixed, Ro→ 0, referred to here as the small-Ro limit. However, it is shown that certain linear terms neglected in the small-Ro limit can be important for finite Ro, and are included in the analysis given here. The observed flow is then well described by linear theory for H/ e 1, particularly in the case of two-dimensional flow over a ridge. However, for H/e 1 the flow field is dominated by a vertical columnar motion, which is not adequately described by the analysi. © 1982, Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.
Print ISSN:
0022-1120
Electronic ISSN:
1469-7645
Topics:
Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Production Engineering, Mining and Metallurgy, Traffic Engineering, Precision Mechanics
,
Physics
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