We analyze the linear stability of monoclinal traveling waves on a constant incline, which connect uniform flowing regions of differing depths. The classical shallow-water equations are employed, subject to a general resistive drag term. This approach incorporates many flow rheologies into a single setting and enables us to investigate the features that set different systems apart. We derive simple formulae for the onset of linear instability, the corresponding linear growth rates and related properties including the existence of monoclinal waves, development of shocks and whether instability is initially triggered up- or downstream of the wave front. Also included within our framework is the presence of shear in the flow velocity profile, which is often neglected in depth-averaged studies. We find that it can significantly modify the threshold for instability. Constant corrections to the governing equations to account for sheared profiles via a 'momentum shape factor' act to stabilize traveling waves. More general correction terms are found to have a nontrivial and potentially important quantitative effect on the properties explored. Finally, we have investigated the spatial properties of the dominant (fastest growing) linear modes. We derive equations for their amplitude and frequency and find that both features can become severely amplified near the front of the traveling wave. For flood waves that propagate into a dry downstream region, this amplification is unbounded in the limit of high disturbance frequency. We show that the rate of divergence is a function of the spatial dependence of the wave depth profile at the front, which may be determined straightforwardly from the drag law.
In this paper we analyze the stability of equilibrium manifolds of hyperbolic shallow water moment equations. Shallow water moment equations describe shallow flows for complex velocity profiles which vary in vertical direction and the models can be seen as extensions of the standard shallow water equations. Equilibrium stability is an important property of balance laws that determines the linear stability of solutions in the vicinity of equilibrium manifolds and it is seen as a necessary condition for stable numerical solutions. After an analysis of the hyperbolic structure of the models, we i…
In this paper we derive consistent shallow water equations for thin films of power law fluids down an incline. These models account for the streamwise diffusion of momentum which is important to describe accurately the full dynamic of the thin film flows when instabilities like roll-waves arise. These models are validated through a comparison with Orr Sommerfeld equations for large scale perturbations. We only consider laminar flow for which the boundary layer issued from the interaction of the flow with the bottom surface has an influence all over the transverse direction to the flow. In this…
Stability of inviscid shear shallow water flows with free surface is studied in the framework of the Benney equations. This is done by investigating the generalized hyperbolicity of the integrodifferential Benney system of equations. It is shown that all shear flows having monotonic convex velocity profiles are stable. The hydrodynamic approximations of the model corresponding to the classes of flows with piecewise linear continuous and discontinuous velocity profiles are derived and studied. It is shown that these approximations possess Hamiltonian structure and a complete system of Riemann i…
Topographic complexity on continental shelves is the catalyst that transforms the barotropic tide into the secondary and residual circulations that dominate vertical and cross-shelf mixing processes. Island wakes are one such example that are observed to significantly influence the transport and distribution of biological and physical scalars. Despite the importance of island wakes, to date, no sufficient, mechanistic description of the physical processes governing their development exists for the general case of unsteady tidal forcing. Controlled laboratory experiments are necessary for the u…
It is increasingly common for models of shallow-layer overland flows to include equations for the evolution of the underlying bed (morphodynamics) and the motion of an associated sedimentary phase. We investigate the linear stability properties of these systems in considerable generality. Naive formulations of the morphodynamics, featuring exchange of sediment between a well-mixed suspended load and the bed, lead to mathematically ill-posed governing equations. This is traced to a singularity in the linearised system at Froude number $Fr = 1$ that causes unbounded unstable growth of short-wave…
Recently, the Whitham and capillary-Whitham equations were shown to accurately model the evolution of surface waves on shallow water. In order to gain a deeper understanding of these equations, we compute periodic, traveling-wave solutions to both and study their stability. We present plots of a representative sampling of solutions for a range of wavelengths, wave speeds, wave heights, and surface tension values. Finally, we discuss the role these parameters play in the stability of the solutions.
In this paper, the instability of shallow water shear flow with a sheared parallel magnetic field is studied. Waves propagating in such magnetic shear flows encounter critical levels where the phase velocity relative to the basic flow $c-U(y)$ matches the Alfvén wave velocities $\pm B(y)/\sqrt{μρ}$, based on the local magnetic field $B(y)$, the magnetic permeability $μ$ and the mass density of the fluid $ρ$. It is shown that when the two critical levels are close to each other, the critical layer can generate an instability. The instability problem is solved, combining asymptotic solutions at …
The aim of this paper is to develop a stability theory and a numerical model for the three density-stratified electrically conductive liquid layers. Using regular perturbation methods to reduce the full 3d problem to the shallow layer model, the coupled wave and electric current equations are derived. The problem set-up allows the weakly non-linear velocity field action and an arbitrary vertical magnetic field. Further linearisation of the coupled equations is used for the linear stability analysis in the case of uniform vertical magnetic field. New analytical stability criteria accounting for…
Hydroelastic solitary waves propagating on the surface of a three-dimensional ideal fluid through the deformation of an elastic sheet are studied. The problem is investigated based on a Benney-Luke-type equation derived via an explicit non-local formulation of the classic water wave problem. The normal form analysis is carried out for the newly developed equation, which results in the Benney-Roskes-Davey-Stewartson (BRDS) system governing the coupled evolution of the envelope of a carrier wave and the wave-induced mean flow. Numerical results show three types of free solitary waves in the Benn…
We modify the nonlinear shallow water equations, the Korteweg-de Vries equation, and the Whitham equation, to permit constant vorticity, and examine wave breaking, or the lack thereof. By wave breaking, we mean that the solution remains bounded but its slope becomes unbounded in finite time. We show that a solution of the vorticity-modified shallow water equations breaks if it carries an increase of elevation; the breaking time decreases to zero as the size of vorticity increases. We propose a full-dispersion shallow water model, which combines the dispersion relation of water waves and the no…
In this note, we announce a complete classification of stability of periodic roll-wave solutions of the viscous shallow-water equations, from their onset at Froude number $F\approx 2$ up to the infinite-Froude limit. For intermediate Froude numbers, we obtain numerically a particularly simple power-law relation between $F$ and the boundaries of the region of stable periods, that appears potentially useful in hydraulic engineering applications. In the asymptotic regime $F\to 2$ (onset), we provide an analytic expression of the stability boundaries whereas in the limit $F\to\infty$, we show that…
We adopt a robust numerical continuation scheme to examine the global bifurcation of periodic traveling waves of the capillary-gravity Whitham equation, which combines the dispersion in the linear theory of capillary-gravity waves and a shallow water nonlinearity. We employ a highly accurate numerical method for space discretization and time stepping, to address orbital stability and instability for a rich variety of the solutions. Our findings can help classify capillary-gravity waves and understand their long-term dynamics.
Strongly stable dual-pairing summation by parts finite difference schemes for the vector invariant nonlinear shallow water equations -- I: Numerical scheme and validation on the plane
The main purpose of the paper is to provide a survey of our recent studies on soliton solutions of the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (KP) equation. The classification is based on the far-field patterns of the solutions which consist of a finite number of line-solitons. Each soliton solution is then defined by a point of the totally non-negative Grassmann variety which can be parametrized by a unique derangement of the symmetric group of permutations. Our study also includes certain numerical stability problems of those soliton solutions. Numerical simulations of the initial value problems indicate th…
