Experimental simulation of eddy formation in Sibuyan and Bohol sea

Abstract

In this paper, we demonstrate eddy formation in the Philippine archipelago using clay island models installed in a water tank, and a wind forcing of 3 m/s placed at the northeast side of the tank to simulate Amihan season. To observe the eddies in our experiments, a star-trail-photography-based software was used, while the velocity profile of each particle was computed using PIVlab in Matlab. The comparison of experimental and simulated results indicates that ocean eddies can be simulated using correct island scale models. However, the effect of the boundary conditions of the wave tank must be minimized in order to acquire accurate results.