Period tripling and energy dissipation of breaking standing waves

We examine the dynamics of two-dimensional steep and breaking standing waves generated by Faraday-wave resonance. Jiang et al. (1996) found a steep wave with a double-peaked crest in experiments and a sharp-crested steep wave in computations. Both waveforms are strongly asymmetric in time and feature large superharmonics. We show experimentally that increasing the forcing amplitude further leads to breaking waves in three recurrent modes (period tripling): sharp crest with breaking, dimpled or flat crest with breaking, and round crest without breaking. Interesting steep waveforms and period-tripled breaking are related directly to the nonlinear interaction between the fundamental mode and the second temporal harmonic. Unfortunately, these higher-amplitude phenomena cannot be numerically modelled since the computations fail for breaking or nearly breaking waves. Based on the periodicity of Faraday waves, we directly estimate the dissipation due to wave breaking by integrating the support force as a function of the container displacement. We find that the breaking events (spray, air entrainment, and plunging) approximately double the wave dissipation.