Experimental study of the particle paths in solitary water waves

Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2012 Apr 13;370(1964):1629-37. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2011.0445.

Abstract

We provide experiments that had been conducted to investigate the particle trajectory beneath a solitary water wave. Experimental results show that the surface drift is larger than the bottom drift. Meanwhile, the ratio of the net horizontal displacement to the total height of the trajectory at the free surface and subsurface will decrease with the initial vertical position and increase with the relative wave height.