Steady water-waves with arbitrary surface-pressure: Their recovery from bottom-pressure measurements

Abstract: Equations relating the pressure at a horizontal seabed, the free-surface profile and the surface-pressure are derived for two-dimensional irrotational steady water waves with arbitrary pressure at the free surface. Special cases include gravity, capillary, flexural and wind waves. Without approximations, we show that the free-surface recovery from the bottom-pressure requires the resolution of only one first-order ordinary differential equation independent of the surface-pressure, thus providing a new general recovery method valid for a broad class of water waves. Another equation provides an explicit expression for the surface-pressure as a function of the bottom-pressure and of the free-surface. Thus, if unknown, the surface-pressure can be also recovered if one extra measurement is available. This new recovery procedure is illustrated analytically for the linear approximation of a flexural-capillary-gravity wave, and numerically for fully nonlinear capillary-gravity waves.