Solved Problems In Water Wave Mechanics

Hamed Mohammadi
March 13, 2014

hamedapps@gmail.com

Problem Statement
A wave eld is observed by satellite. The wave length are determined by to
be 312 m in deep water and 200 m over the continental shelf. What is the
shelf depth?

Solution
One form of dispersion relationship is
(1)

L = L0 tanh kh

where, L0 is deep water wave length, L is wave length at intermediate

depth, k is wave number, and h is water depth. Rearranging Eq. 1 we have
L
= tanh kh
L0

or
(
kh = arctanh

Since k =

L
L0

1
h = arctanh
k

L
L0

2
, we can obtain
L
( )
L
L
h=
arctanh
2
L0

Substituting given data

200
arctanh
h=
2

200
312

)
h = 24.189 m