Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2006
The rolling motion of a sphere on a smooth plane boundary in a simple-harmonic water motion has been analytically and experimentally investigated. For spheres having specific gravities ranging from 0·09 to 15·18 the sphere motion was found to be sinusoidal for both low and high values of the period parameter defined by Keulegan & Carpenter. The knowledge of the sphere motion, and hence the resultant force, allowed the determination of inertia and drag coefficients from Fourier-averaging techniques. Experiments in the inertial range yielded an added-mass coefficient of 1·2, compared with 0·67 from inviscid theory for translating spheres. For values of the period parameter greater than 30 the drag coefficient is reported to be approximately 0·74.