Vorticity generation in water waves

We propose to discuss the relevance of the irrotationality assumption commonly made to obtain reduced water waves models (Shallow Water/Saint-Venant, Korteweg-de Vries, Green-Naghdi, etc.). To do so, we investigate the asymptotic behaviour of two boundary layers associated with oceanic flows: one appearing in the vicinity of the free surface and the other lying at the bottom boundary. This is achieved numerically approximating the solution to the Navier-Stokes equations using the finite-element method on a moving mesh.

Information about the video

Date of recording 21/04/2026
Date of publication 19/05/2026
Institution IHP
Licence CC BY NC ND
Language English
Audience Researchers, Graduate Students
Director(s) Service audiovisuel de l'IHP
Format MP4
Venue IHP - Hermite Amphitheater

Domain(s)

Mathematical Physics

Bibliography

Riquier, A. and Dormy, E. (2026) Do irrotational water waves remain irrotational in the limit of a vanishing viscosity? Proc. Roy. Soc. A 482:2329
Riquier, A. and Dormy, E. (2024) Numerical study of a viscous breaking water wave and the limit of vanishing viscosity. J. Fluid Mech. 984:R5