Law of spreading of the crest of a breaking wave
Résumé
In a wide range of conditions, ocean waves break. This can be seen as the manifestation of a singularity in the dynamics of the fluid surface, moving under the effect of the fluid motion underneath. We show that, at the onset of breaking, the wave crest expands in the spanwise direction as the square root of time. This is first derived from a theoretical analysis and then compared with experimental findings. The agreement is excellent.
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