Waves and free surface flows is a research area in fluid mechanics focused on flows with a deformable interface between a liquid and a gas, typically water and air, where surface tension and gravity govern interface dynamics. It encompasses the generation, propagation, interaction, and breaking of surface and internal waves, including linear and nonlinear wave theory, dispersive and solitary waves, and turbulence–wave coupling. Research combines theoretical modeling (e.g., Navier–Stokes equations with free-surface boundary conditions), laboratory experiments, and numerical methods such as volume-of-fluid and level-set approaches, with applications in coastal and ocean engineering, naval hydrodynamics, and environmental fluid dynamics.
When water drains from the bottom of a vertical tube, it is followed by a thin film of liquid that can adopt complex and beautiful shapes. KAUST researchers have now studied exactly how these "fluted films" form and break ...
Soft Matter
Aug 20, 2025
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44
On New Year's Day 1995, a monstrous 80-foot wave in the North Sea slammed into the Draupner oil platform. The wall of water crumpled steel railings and flung heavy equipment across the deck—but its biggest impact was what ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 7, 2025
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248
Whether diving off docks, cannonballing into lakes or leaping off the high board, there's nothing quite like the joy of jumping into water.
General Physics
May 16, 2025
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99
Scientists at the University of Miami's Alfred C. Glassell Jr. SUrge‐STructure‐Atmosphere INteraction (SUSTAIN) laboratory conducted a first-of-its-kind study into how waves form and increase in windy and hurricane conditions. ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 14, 2025
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27
Researchers from RMIT University and the University of Melbourne have discovered that water generates an electrical charge up to 10 times greater than previously understood when it moves across a surface.
Condensed Matter
Mar 11, 2025
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51
A team of international scientists co-led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have discovered a way to manipulate water waves, allowing them to trap and precisely move floating objects—almost as ...
Soft Matter
Mar 11, 2025
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69
Ripples, like ones produced by raindrops falling in a puddle, are also called capillary waves. Studied since antiquity, they have garnered considerable interest in modern science due to their ability to reveal information ...
General Physics
Feb 13, 2025
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40
A team of physicists at Fudan University, working with colleagues from Henan University, both in China, and from Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore and Donostia International Physics Center, in Spain, has developed ...
Scientists have discovered that ocean waves may become far more extreme and complex than previously imagined.
General Physics
Sep 18, 2024
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3135
Waves pick up information from their environment through which they propagate. A theory of information carried by waves has now been developed at TU Wien—with astonishing results that can be utilized for technical applications.
Optics & Photonics
Jun 12, 2024
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424
