Abstract

The formulation of a canonical deep-water breaking wave problem is introduced, and the results of a set of three-dimensional numerical simulations for deep-water breaking waves are presented. In this paper fully nonlin-ear progressive waves are generated by applying a nor-mal stress to the free surface. Precise control of the forcing allows for a systematic study of four types of deep-water breaking waves, characterized herein as weak plunging, plunging, strong plunging, and very strong plunging. The three-dimensional iso contours of vorticity ex-hibit intense streamwise vorticity shortly after the ini-tial ovular cavity of air is entrained during the primary plunging event. An array of high resolution images are