Breaking waves: to foam or not to foam?

“Breaking waves: to foam or not to foam? Petr Karnakov, ETH Zurich Sergey Litvinov, ETH Zurich Jean M. Favre, Swiss National Supercomputing Centre Petros Koumoutsakos, ETH Zurich DOI: Breaking sea waves produce air bubbles that cluster up as foam. We suggest that foam is due to the inhibition of bubble coalescence (by surfactants and other impurities). We present a novel volume-of-fluid method that can distinguish between bubble clustering and coalescence and demonstrate this effect on simulations of breaking waves. See other videos from the 2019 Gallery of Fluid Motion: “