Initiation of wind waves on viscous fluids – ViscousWindWaves

Waves at gas-liquid interfaces are of fundamental interest in many fields of application, from engineering (coating, processing and cooling of solid surfaces, two-phase flows in oil industry...) to environmental sciences (momentum, heat and mass transfers at the air-sea interface, coastal engineering ...). The aim of this project is to study wind-wave formation over viscous liquids, using high-resolution optical measurements in wind-tunnel experiments at laboratory FAST (Orsay) and joint numerical simulations and experiments in the presence of a turbulent flow over a deformable surface performed at laboratory IMFT (Toulouse). We aim at understanding the origin of the first deformations of the interface even below the wave formation onset, the nature of this instability and the nonlinear dynamics of waves beyond the onset.