Study of the relationship between non-dimensional roughness length and wave age, effected by wave directionality

Abstract

Relationship between the non-dimensional roughness length and inverse of wave age has been discussed without consideration of wave directions, though wind wave field consists of various directional component waves. In this study we observe wave heights by an array of four wave gauges at the Hiratsuka Tower of (Independent Administrative Institution) National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED), Japan, and discuss the effect of wave directionality. As a result, the data sets were classified into two different groups according to the directional wave spectrum distribution. In case 1 only swell and wind waves exist and in case 2 there exist wave components from several directions. It is shown that the case of multiple-directional component waves (case 2) may affect the non-dimensional roughness length and friction velocity.