A NOTE ON THE ENERGY TRANSFER FROM WIND TO WAVES

Abstract

The amount of the energy transfered from wind to waves is estimated from our previous experimental data. This was carried out by assuming that the wind waves dissipate the energy only due to molecular viscosity, and by estimating a/ax (C•E/2) from the distributions of mean wave height in the wind tunnel. It is considered from this estimation that the energy transfer from wind to waves is about 15% of that at the critical layer in the wind field C•t, where t is the total stress of wind, and C the phase velocity of waves. The "wave drag coefficient" rw^2 which relates with the "effective stress" for wave growth is also shown as a function of wind speed.