Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in a shallow-water flow with a finite width Available to Purchase

We examine an effect of side walls on the linear stability of an interface of tangential-velocity discontinuity in shallow-water flow. The flow is pure horizontal in the plane xy, and the fluid is bounded in a finite width 2d in the y− direction. In region 0 < y < d, the fluid is moving with uniform velocity U but is at rest for −d < y < 0. Without side walls, the flow is unstable for a velocity difference $U<8c$⁠, with c being the velocity of gravity waves. In this work, we show that if the velocity difference U is smaller than 2c, the interface is always destabilized, also known as the flow is unstable. The unstable region of an infinite width model is shrunken by the effects of side walls in the case of narrow width, while there is no range for the Froude number for stabilization in the case of large width. These results play an important role in predicting the wave propagations and have a wide application in the fields of industry. As a result of the interaction of waves and the mean flow boundary, the flow is unstable, which is caused by a decrease in the kinetic energy of disturbance.