Linearized free-surface boundary conditions Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-25
For a small-amplitude surface gravity wave described by velocity potential and surface elevation , linearizing the kinematic boundary condition for a free-surface graph and the Bernoulli equation at the mean surface gives
Here is the applied excess pressure above constant atmospheric pressure. With , differentiate the second equation in time and use the first to obtain . These surface conditions apply at finite depth as well as in the deep-water gravity wave limit; depth enters through the bottom condition. The quadratic kinetic energy term is omitted at this order, and surface tension is neglected.
Normal modes of surface gravity waves in a rectangular tank Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-25
For a tank with side lengths , depth , impermeable walls and negligible surface tension, the small-amplitude surface gravity wave normal modes have horizontal factors and . The velocity potential has vertical factor , satisfying the bottom Neumann boundary condition. Combining the linearized free-surface boundary conditions gives . The uniform surface elevation is excluded when the total water volume is fixed. Taking one horizontal index zero gives the two-dimensional tank modes.
For , the shallow-water approximation gives ; for , the deep-water gravity wave relation follows. An oscillating-wall forcing of a rectangular tank couples to these same normal modes and becomes resonant at their natural frequencies.
For an irrotational flow, write . The incompressible flow condition then gives the Laplace equation
At leading order in a small disturbance this equation holds on . Including gravity, the Unsteady Bernoulli equation is
Choose the time-dependent additive freedom in the velocity potential so that . Neglecting surface tension, pressure continuity at the free surface gives the exact dynamic condition
The free surface is a material boundary: applying the material derivative to yields the kinematic boundary condition for a free-surface graph
For a small disturbance, the Taylor expansion from to changes the first-order velocity potential and its partial derivatives only at second order. Both and are also second-order terms. The linearized free-surface boundary conditions are therefore
The fixed bed has the no-penetration boundary condition
The required approximation is small surface elevation, small wave steepness, and small velocity perturbations. The stated alone does not ensure this approximation near resonance.
For , the nonnegative amplitude is
Its first two derivatives are positive in this interval:
The graph is increasing and convex, starts with a horizontal tangent at the limiting value , and has a vertical asymptote at . Therefore the hydrostatic lower bound for a travelling-pressure response is
Because the paper assumes , this is an infimum, approached as , rather than an attained minimum. If the stationary limit is admitted, equality holds: the hydrostatic equilibrium condition is . Near resonance,
The divergence describes the linear model; sufficiently close to the small-disturbance assumptions fail. The lower bound and sketch refer to the travelling forced component, since adding free oscillations can change the instantaneous surface elevation.
Figure 1.
Subcritical travelling-wave amplitude rises from its hydrostatic lower bound and diverges at resonance
. Details.
Seek the travelling forced component of the surface elevation in the form , where and is a signed coefficient. The forcing has wavenumber one. Separation of variables in the Laplace equation, followed by the bed no-penetration boundary condition, gives
Since , the surface kinematic boundary condition requires , so
At , . The dynamic member of the linearized free-surface boundary conditions therefore becomes
Consequently the signed response and the nonnegative amplitude are
The travelling-pressure response of finite-depth surface gravity waves is opposite in phase to the imposed pressure below the resonant speed and in phase above it. These expressions describe the travelling forced component; freely propagating surface gravity waves can be superposed to meet additional initial conditions.
Let , with . The surface elevation is , so . Use separation of variables in the interior Laplace equation:
The term is excluded by the bed no-penetration boundary condition. The linear surface kinematic boundary condition determines
An irrelevant additive constant is omitted. At ,
The linear dynamic boundary condition then reduces to
Consequently the dispersion relation of a floating elastic plate with zero plate inertia is
The negative-frequency branch gives propagation in the opposite direction. For signed wavenumber, replace by in the squared-frequency formula. Setting recovers the finite-depth surface gravity wave relation, a useful sign check.
Apply separation of variables to Laplace's equation. The side-wall Neumann boundary conditions give horizontal factors with . The bottom condition fixes the vertical factor to . Substitution into the surface condition in i gives the normal modes of surface gravity waves in a rectangular tank:
The corresponding surface elevation follows from . The spatially uniform mode has zero frequency; its constant elevation changes total fluid volume, so it is absent when that volume is fixed. An additive constant in changes no fluid velocity.
The velocity potential gives horizontal and vertical velocity components . The kinematic boundary condition at each fixed impermeable wall is zero normal fluid velocity, hence
Let be the surface elevation. To first order in its amplitude, the kinematic boundary condition for a free-surface graph gives at . The dynamic boundary condition for an inviscid interface fixes the surface pressure to atmospheric pressure. The unsteady Bernoulli equation, after choosing the time-dependent gauge of , then gives at : the quadratic velocity term is second order in amplitude. Differentiate this last equation in time and eliminate to obtain the linearized free-surface boundary conditions in combined form,
Put and
This polynomial is a harmonic function: . Also , and . Thus satisfies Laplace's equation with homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions on both side walls and the bottom. Its Fourier cosine series consequently has the form
The surface condition becomes , where
For a nonzero forcing frequency away from the natural frequencies, the coefficients of the oscillating-wall forcing of a rectangular tank are
Here in the definition of . In fact for , since . The zero-mode coefficient ensures that the mean surface elevation is in complex amplitude, exactly the first-order volume conservation adjustment to the moving wall.
Surface elevation 2026-10-24
The surface elevation is the signed height of a free surface relative to a chosen reference level, commonly its undisturbed position. With upward coordinate , the surface is the graph . Its evolution obeys the kinematic boundary condition for a free-surface graph.