Measurements of surface-wave damping in a container

Abstract

For surface waves in brimful right circular cylinders with clean interfaces and pinned contact lines, damping rates and frequencies are measured for the six lowest frequency surface-wave modes over a two-decade range of the inverse Reynolds number C. Asymptotic calculations that include viscous dissipation in both Stokes boundary layers and the bulk show good agreement with measurements for small C; the theory typically overpredicts the measured damping rates for C large. Our measurements suggest interfacial contamination may account for a previously reported discrepancy between theory and experiment.