To use all functions of this page, please activate cookies in your browser.
my.chemeurope.com
With an accout for my.chemeurope.com you can always see everything at a glance – and you can configure your own website and individual newsletter.
- My watch list
- My saved searches
- My saved topics
- My newsletter
Shallow water equationsThe shallow water equations (also called Saint Venant equations after Adhémar Jean Claude Barré de Saint-Venant) are a set of equations that describe the flow below a horizontal pressure surface in a fluid. The flow these equations describe is the horizontal flow caused by changes in the height of the pressure surface of the fluid. Shallow water equations can be used in atmospheric and oceanic modelling, but are much simpler than the primitive equations. Shallow water equation models have only one vertical level, so they cannot encompass any factor that varies with height. Additional recommended knowledgeIn general, nearly all forms of the shallow water equations relate to the three variables (u, v, η), and their evolution over space and time. Equations
Wave modelling by shallow water equationsShallow water equations can be used to model Rossby and Kelvin waves in the atmosphere, rivers, lakes and oceans as well as gravity waves in a smaller domain (e.g. surface waves in a bath). In order for shallow water equations to be valid, the wave length of the phenomenon they are supposed to model has to be much higher than the depth of the basin where the phenomenon takes place. Shallow water equations are especially suitable to model tides which have very large length scales (over hundred of kilometers). For tidal motion, even a very deep ocean may be considered as shallow as its depth will always be much smaller than the tidal wave length. The image on the right is output from a shallow water equation model of water in a bathtub. The water experiences 5 splashes which generate surface gravity waves that propagate away from the splash locations and reflect off of the bathtub walls. |
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Shallow_water_equations". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia. |