A note on the effect of surface contamination in water wave damping

Asymptotic formulas are derived for the effect of contamination on surface wave damping in a brimful circular cylinder; viscosity is assumed to be small and contamination is modelled through Marangoni elasticity with insoluble surfactant. It is seen that an appropriately chosen finite Marangoni elasticity provides an explanation for a significant amount of the unexplained additional damping rate in a well-known experiment by Henderson Br Miles (1994); discrepancies are within 15%, significantly lower than those encountered by Henderson & Miles (1994) under the assumption of inextensible film.