Characteristics of the Internal Waves Generated by a Towed Model with Rotating Propeller Under a Strong Halocline

Experiments are performed on the internal waves(IWs) generated by a towed model with rotating propeller in a density-stratified fluid with linear halocline; the Reynolds number ranges from 7 000 to 84 000, and the Froude number ranges from 0.7 to 8.1. The wave speed, amplitude and patterns are investigated on the basis of the multi-channel conductivity probe array technology and the cross correlation analysis method. It is shown that the propeller advances the transition from the body-generated IWs to the wake-generated IWs. Before the transition, the IWs are stationary to the translational model. An extra V-shaped wave with a narrow opening angle is generated by the propeller and the wave amplitude becomes larger with the increase of the thrust momentum,indicating that the propeller produces body and wake effects at the same time before the transition. After the transition, the Froude number associated with the wave speed drops down and fluctuates within 0.4—1.5, showing that the IWs are nonstationary to the model. The interaction of the drag momentum and the thrust momentum changes the characteristics of the wave amplitudes and patterns. The wave amplitude no longer simply grows with the Froude number but depends on the contrast of the drag momentum and the thrust momentum. Experimental results show that the most obvious contrast of the wave pattern contour maps appears when the drag momentum and the thrust momentum have the largest difference if other conditions are the same. When the ratio of the drag momentum to the thrust momentum is within 1—10, the wake can be considered as zero-momentum, meaning that the momentum difference is not enough to generate large scale structures in the wake.