Publication Date:
2022-05-25
Description:
© Cambridge University Press, 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Journal of Fluid Mechanics 786 (2016): R1, doi:10.1017/jfm.2015.642.
Description:
The onset of monami – the synchronous waving of seagrass beds driven by a steady flow – is modelled as a linear instability of the flow. Unlike previous works, our model considers the drag exerted by the grass in establishing the steady flow profile, and in damping out perturbations to it. We find two distinct modes of instability, which we label modes 1 and 2. Mode 1 is closely related to Kelvin–Helmholtz instability modified by vegetation drag, whereas mode 2 is unrelated to Kelvin–Helmholtz instability and arises from an interaction between the flow in the vegetated and unvegetated layers. The vegetation damping, according to our model, leads to a finite threshold flow for both of these modes. Experimental observations for the onset and frequency of waving compare well with model predictions for the instability onset criteria and the imaginary part of the complex growth rate respectively, but experiments lie in a parameter regime where the two modes can not be distinguished.
Description:
M.M.B. was supported by the Collective Interactions Unit, OIST Graduate
University, while visiting Brown University. A.M. was supported by NSF 1131393.
Keywords:
Coastal engineering
;
Geophysical and geological flows
;
Instability
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
Format:
application/pdf
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