Water surface waves in a horizontally oscillating container

Abstract

This paper presents the results of experimental verification of Sretenskii’s linear theory of gravity waves in a container partially filled with water and oscillating horizontally according to the harmonic law. It has been shown that this theory predicts the existence of an infinite ordered countable set of generation modes of unstable waves. It has been experimentally confirmed that the waves are unstable if the container oscillation frequency is equal to the frequency of any odd standing-wave mode. At even eigenfrequencies of container oscillations, the theory predicts wave amplitudes up to a constant term. Experiment has shown that, in this case, the waves are stable and have minimum amplitudes.