Traveling surface waves of moderate amplitude in shallow water

We study traveling wave solutions of an equation for surface waves of moderate amplitude arising as a shallow water approximation of the Euler equations for inviscid, incompressible and homogenous fluids. We obtain solitary waves of elevation and depression, including a family of solitary waves with compact support, where the amplitude may increase or decrease with respect to the wave speed. Our approach is based on techniques from dynamical systems and relies on a reformulation of the evolution equation as an autonomous Hamiltonian system which facilitates an explicit expression for bounded orbits in the phase plane to establish existence of the corresponding periodic and solitary traveling wave solutions

Nonlinear dynamics of waves and modulated waves in 1D thermocapillary flows. I: General presentation and periodic solutions

We present experimental results on hydrothermal traveling-waves dynamics in long and narrow 1D channels. The onset of primary traveling-wave patterns is briefly presented for different fluid heights and for annular or bounded channels, i.e., within periodic or non-periodic boundary conditions. For periodic boundary conditions, by increasing the control parameter or changing the discrete mean-wavenumber of the waves, we produce modulated waves patterns. These patterns range from stable periodic phase-solutions, due to supercritical Eckhaus instability, to spatio-temporal defect-chaos involving traveling holes and/or counter-propagating-waves competition, i.e., traveling sources and sinks. The transition from non-linearly saturated Eckhaus modulations to transient pattern-breaks by traveling holes and spatio-temporal defects is documented. Our observations are presented in the framework of coupled complex Ginzburg-Landau equations with additional fourth and fifth order terms which account for the reflection symmetry breaking at high wave-amplitude far from onset. The second part of this paper (nlin.PS/0208030) extends this study to spatially non-periodic patterns observed in both annular and bounded channel.Comment: 45 pages, 21 figures (elsart.cls + AMS extensions). Accepted in Physica D. See also companion paper "Nonlinear dynamics of waves and modulated waves in 1D thermocapillary flows. II: Convective/absolute transitions" (nlin.PS/0208030). A version with high resolution figures is available on N.G. web pag

Nonlinear modulational stability of periodic traveling-wave solutions of the generalized Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation

In this paper we consider the spectral and nonlinear stability of periodic traveling wave solutions of a generalized Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation. In particular, we resolve the long-standing question of nonlinear modulational stability by demonstrating that spectrally stable waves are nonlinearly stable when subject to small localized (integrable) perturbations. Our analysis is based upon detailed estimates of the linearized solution operator, which are complicated by the fact that the (necessarily essential) spectrum of the associated linearization intersects the imaginary axis at the origin. We carry out a numerical Evans function study of the spectral problem and find bands of spectrally stable periodic traveling waves, in close agreement with previous numerical studies of Frisch-She-Thual, Bar-Nepomnyashchy, Chang-Demekhin-Kopelevich, and others carried out by other techniques. We also compare predictions of the associated Whitham modulation equations, which formally describe the dynamics of weak large scale perturbations of a periodic wave train, with numerical time evolution studies, demonstrating their effectiveness at a practical level. For the reader's convenience, we include in an appendix the corresponding treatment of the Swift-Hohenberg equation, a nonconservative counterpart of the generalized Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation for which the nonlinear stability analysis is considerably simpler, together with numerical Evans function analyses extending spectral stability analyses of Mielke and Schneider.Comment: 78 pages, 11 figure

2009 program of studies : nonlinear waves

The fiftieth year of the program was dedicated to Nonlinear Waves, a topic with many applications in geophysical fluid dynamics. The principal lectures were given jointly by Roger Grimshaw and Harvey Segur and between them they covered material drawn from fundamental theory, fluid experiments, asymptotics, and reaching all the way to detailed applications. These lectures set the scene for the rest of the summer, with subsequent daily lectures by staff and visitors on a wide range of topics in GFD. It was a challenge for the fellows and lecturers to provide a consistent set of lecture notes for such a wide-ranging lecture course, but not least due to the valiant efforts of Pascale Garaud, who coordinated the write-up and proof-read all the notes, we are very pleased with the final outcome contained in these pages. This year’s group of eleven international GFD fellows was as diverse as one could get in terms of gender, origin, and race, but all were unified in their desire to apply their fundamental knowledge of fluid dynamics to challenging problems in the real world. Their projects covered a huge range of physical topics and at the end of the summer each student presented his or her work in a one-hour lecture. As always, these projects are the heart of the research and education aspects of our summer study.Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation through Grant No. OCE-0824636 and the Office of Naval Research under Contract No. N00014-09-10844

Stability of Viscous St. Venant Roll-Waves: From Onset to the Infinite-Froude Number Limit

International audienceWe study the spectral stability of roll-wave solutions of the viscous St. Venant equationsmodeling inclined shallow-water flow, both at onset in the small-Froude number or “weakly unstable”limit F → 2+ and for general values of the Froude number F , including the limit F → +∞. In the former,F → 2+ , limit, the shallow water equations are formally approximated by a Korteweg de Vries/Kuramoto-Sivashinsky (KdV-KS) equation that is a singular perturbation of the standard Korteweg de Vries (KdV)equation modeling horizontal shallow water flow. Our main analytical result is to rigorously validate thisformal limit, showing that stability as F → 2+ is equivalent to stability of the corresponding KdV-KSwaves in the KdV limit. Together with recent results obtained for KdV-KS by Johnson–Noble–Rodrigues–Zumbrun and Barker, this gives not only the first rigorous verification of stability for any single viscous St.Venant roll wave, but a complete classification of stability in the weakly unstable limit. In the remainderof the paper, we investigate numerically and analytically the evolution of the stability diagram as Froudenumber increases to infinity. Notably, we find transition at around F = 2.3 from weakly unstable todifferent, large-F behavior, with stability determined by simple power law relations. The latter stabilitycriteria are potentially useful in hydraulic engineering applications, for which typically 2.5 ≤ F ≤ 6.0