Interactions between swell and colinear wind short crested waves, following and opposing

When wind blows over a water surface during a swell, it generates short-crested, three-dimensional waves that interact with the underlying flow field through a mechanism that ultimately increases the average energy. In the present work, two test cases in which wind is flowing following and opposing a swell are analysed with experiments and are compared with wind-wave-only and swell-only cases. The analysis of the free surface fluctuation and of the flow field, with the three components of fluid velocity measured at the same time through a stereo particle image velocimetry system, leads to an accurate quantification of the energy distribution, of the structure of the oscillating, fluctuating (due to wind-waves) and turbulent kinetic energy, without assumptions on the structure of the flow. The findings demonstrate that the transverse dynamics is a pivotal factor in the transfer of energy in the near-free surface domain, and elucidate the energy transfer between wind-waves and swell. The results also confirm the reduction of oscillating kinetic energy of the swell in the presence of short wind-waves, a process interpreted with different possible mechanisms. There is evidence of the enhancement of wind action in the presence of swell compared to that in the case of wind-waves-only, confirming that energy transfer from the wind to the sea is enhanced when wind flows over a swell. Consequently, when the fetch is influenced by swells generated or propagated from different regions, and during multi-peak sea storms, wave generation models should account for this amplification. • Stereo PIV is used to measure velocity beneath regular waves in the presence of wind. • The velocity is split into four components: mean, periodic, wind, and turbulent. • The spanwise component dominates the near-surface dynamics when wind is present. • A strong coupling between long waves, short wind waves and turbulence is observed.