A novel technique in analyzing non-linear wave-wave interaction

During wave growth non-linear wave-wave interactions cause transfer of some wave energy from lower to higher wave periods as the spectrum grows. Wavelet bicoherence, which is a new technique in the analysis of wind-wave and wave-wave interactions, is used to analyze non-linear wave-wave interactions. A selected record of wind wave that contains the maximum wave height observed during 6 h of wave generation is divided into five segments and wavelet bicoherence is computed for the whole record, and for all divided segments. The study shows that the non-linear wave-wave interaction occurs at different bicoherence levels and these levels are different from one segment to another due to the non-stationarity feature of the examined data set. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.