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Updated: Mar 15, 2026

Measurements of Waves in a Wind-wave Tank Under Steady and Time-varying Wind Forcing
Published on: February 13, 2018
Elastic wave turbulence and intermittency
Sergio Chibbaro1, Christophe Josserand1
1Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, UMR 7190, Institut Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, F-75005, Paris, France and CNRS, UMR 7190, Institut Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, F-75005, Paris, France.
Abstract:
We investigate the onset of intermittency for vibrating elastic plate turbulence in the framework of the weak wave turbulence theory using a numerical approach. The spectrum of the displacement field and the structure functions of the fluctuations are computed for different forcing amplitudes. At low forcing, the spectrum predicted by the theory is observed, while the fluctuations are consistent with Gaussian statistics. When the forcing is increased, the spectrum varies at large scales, corresponding to the oscillations of nonlinear structures made of ridges delimited by d cones. In this regime, the fluctuations exhibit small-scale intermittency that can be fitted via a multifractal model. The analysis of the nonlinear frequency shows that the intermittency is linked to the breakdown of the weak turbulence at large scales only.
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