The damping of surface gravity waves in a bounded liquid

Abstract

In deducing the viscous damping rate in surface waves confined by side walls, Ursell found in an example that two different calculations, one by energy dissipation within and the other by pressure working on the edge of the side-wall boundary layers, gave different answers. This discrepancy occurs in other examples also and is resolved here by examining the energy transfer in the neighbourhood of the free-surface meniscus. With due care near the meniscus a boundary-layer–Poincaré method is employed to give an alternative derivation for the rate of attenuation and to obtain in addition the frequency (or wave-number) shift due to viscosity. Surface tension is not considered.