Wave damping by a thin layer of viscous fluid

The rate of damping of surface gravity-capillary waves is investigated, in a system which consists of a thin layer of a Newtonian viscous fluid of thickness d floating on a Newtonian fluid of infinite depth. The surface and interfacial tensions, elasticities and viscosities are taken into account. In particular, an approximate dispersion relation is derived for the case where kd and (omega/nu(+))(1/2)d are both small, where k is the wavenumber, omega is the angular frequency and nu(+) is the kinematic viscosity of the upper fluid. If d --> 0 while nu(+)d remains finite, published dispersion relations for viscoelastic surface films of extremely small (e.g., monomolecular) thickness are reproduced, if we add the surface and interfacial tensions, elasticities and viscosities together, and then add an additional 4 rho(+)nu(+)d to the surface viscosity, where rho(+) is the density of the upper fluid. A simple approximation is derived for the damping rate and associated frequency shift when their magnitudes are both small. An example is given of what may happen with a slick of heavy fuel oil on water: a slick 10 mu m thick produces a damping rate only slightly different from that of a film of essentially zero thickness, but the effect of the finite thickness becomes very noticeable if it is increased to 0.1-1 mm. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.