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.
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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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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50
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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68
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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39
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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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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423
Topological wave structures are wave patterns that exhibit specific topological properties, or in other words, properties that remain unvaried under smooth deformations of a physical system. These structures, such as vortices ...
Solitons are quasiparticles that propagate along a non-dissipative wave. Put another way, they are waveforms that hold their shape as they move—like a single wave moving across the surface of a pond. They can also show particle-like ...
Optics & Photonics
Jan 31, 2024
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71
As an ocean wave laps up against a beach, it contains innumerable swirls and eddies. The seawater forms complex patterns at each level, from the waves that surfers catch to ripples too small and fast for the human eye to ...
General Physics
Jan 26, 2024
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