Experimental Investigation of the Generation of Internal Waves by a Vertical Cylinder in a Near-Surface Pycnocline

A bench study of the amplitudes, mode composition, and phase structure of the internal waves generated by a vertical cylinder in the presence of a near-surface pycnocline has been performed; the pycnocline took the form of a stratified fluid layer located between two quasi-homogeneous layers of thicknesses h1 and h2=2h1. In the experiments, the cylinder traveled at velocities critical with respect to internal wave generation. Different cases of model submergence relative to the pycnocline are considered. The dependence of the mode structure and the amplitude-phase characteristics of the forced internal waves on the body velocity and its relative submergence is analyzed. The parameters of both steady and unsteady wave systems are studied.