Dense gravity currents moving beneath progressive free-surface water waves

Abstract

AbstractThe characteristics of dense gravity currents in coastal regions, where free-surface gravity waves are dominant, have yet to be studied in the laboratory. This paper provides a first insight into the dynamics of dense saline gravity currents moving beneath regular progressive free-surface water waves. The gravity currents were generated by releasing a finite volume of saline into a large wave tank with an established periodic wave field. After the initial collapse, the gravity currents propagated horizontally with two fronts, one propagating in the wave direction and the other against the wave direction. The fronts of the gravity currents oscillated with an amplitude and phase that correlated with the orbital velocities within a region close to the bed. To leading order, the overall length of the gravity current was found to be weakly affected by the wave action and the dynamics of the current could be approximated by simply considering the buoyancy of the released fluid. Other characteristics such as the position of the gravity current centre and the shape of the two leading profiles were found to be significantly affected by the wave action. The centre was displaced at constant speed dependent on the second-order wave-induced mean Lagrangian velocity. For long waves, the centre was advected downstream in the direction of wave propagation owing to the dominance of Stokes drift. For short waves, the gravity current centre moved upstream against the wave direction, as under these wave conditions Stokes drift is negligible at the bed. An asymmetry in the shape of the upstream and downstream current heads was observed, with the gravity current front moving against the waves being much thicker and the front steeper, similar to the case of a current moving in a stream.