Ship wakes is a complex, multi-phase and multi-scale flow regime with great interest for both practical applications and fundamental physical processes: e.g., optimization of naval vessel architecture, and elucidation of bubble entrainment mechanisms. Close to the air-water interface, the turbulent field is coupled with the surface dynamics. Numerical simulations reveal interesting modulation of the turbulence statistics in strong turbulence regimes, but to date, there are no experimental data to validate this behavior.
Our research focuses on the development of new non-intrusive diagnostics for reconstruction of liquid-gas interfaces in the three-dimensional space, as well as the design and characterization of a new free surface facility that achieves strong turbulence to validate the numerical solvers and provide more insights into the turbulence structure near a free surface.