Tidal rectification in lateral viscous boundary layers of a semi-enclosed basin

Abstract

The rectified flow, induced by divergence of the vorticity flux in lateral oscillatory viscous boundary layers along the sidewalls of a semi-enclosed basin, is studied as a function of the Strouhal number, k, equivalent to the Reynolds number of the viscous inner oscillatory boundary layer, and of the Stokes number. The squared ratio of these numbers defines another Reynolds number, measuring the strength of the self-advection by the residual flow. For strong self-advection the residual current decays to zero in an outer boundary, its width being large compared to the width of the inner layer. The regimes of small, moderate and strong self-advection are analysed.