New method of directional spectrum estimation accounting for ambient shearing currents

Realistic currents in seas and oceans are almost always changing in depth thus indicating on the presence of shear in the mean ambient flow. However, analysis methodologies interpreting directional wave data gathered by in-situ measurement devices such as: buoys, pressure gauges and Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCPs) utilize potential irrotational flow theory which cannot account for the rotational shearing currents. The effects of shearing currents on the wave direction estimations were studied on synthetic ADCP data of waves propagating in a predetermined spread. The synthetic data was generated employing the Rayleigh Boundary Value Problem (BVP) and a selected ambient current profile. The potential data processing led to significant errors in wave directional spread estimation for common shearing currents (~10°  in mean wave direction for the presented example). This finding is of great importance, as it addresses the influence of an ambient current profile on wave propagation direction. The obtained results suggest that there is an uncertainty with the confidence of any wave directional spread ever presented by in-situ wave measurement devices.

A new methodology was developed for estimating directional wave spectra based on rotational flow physics by acquiring new terms emanate from wave-shearing current interaction governing equations. This included a derivation of new numerical transfer functions for the fluid’s physical properties based on the Rayleigh BVP. Then, by applying classical cross- and auto-spectral analysis on time-series data sets, the directional spread function was numerically reconstructed. The newly derived data processing methodology was applied to the same synthetic ADCP data sets. It was found to be capable of reconstructing the spread with great accuracy (0.4° in mean wave direction for the presented example). In addition, to modeling and synthetic data, field measurement data from several campaigns were also analyzed showing the importance of accounting for the vertical shear. This makes it a prominent methodology for estimating directional wave spectra in realistic oceanic conditions.