Wave heights and set-up in a surf zone

A theoretical model is developed for wave heights and set-up in a surf zone. In the time-averaged equations of energy and momentum the energy flux, radiation stress and energy dissipation are determined by simple approximations which include the effect of the surface roller in the breaker and the actual shape of the waves. To the first approximation the roller represents a volume of water moving with the wave speed. It significantly changes both energy flux and radiation stress of the surf zone waves. The equations of energy and momentum are solved simultaneously to give the wave height variation and the set-up. Comparison with measurements shows good agreement. Also the transitions immediately after breaking are analyzed and shown to be in accordance with the above-mentioned ideas and results.     

Surf zone dynamics simulated by a Boussinesq type model. Part I. Model description and cross-shore motion of regular waves

This is the first of three papers on the modelling of various types of surf zone phenomena. In this first paper, part I, the model is presented and its basic features are studied for the case of regular waves. The model is based on two-dimensional equations of the Boussinesq type and it features improved linear dispersion characteristics, possibility of wave breaking, and a moving boundary at the shoreline. The moving shoreline is treated numerically by replacing the solid beach by a permeable beach characterized by an extremely small porosity. Run-up of nonbreaking waves is verified against the analytical solution for nonlinear shallow water waves. The inclusion of wave breaking is based on the surface roller concept for spilling breakers using a geometrical determination of the instantaneous roller thickness at each point and modelling the effect of wave breaking by an additional convective momentum term. This is a function of the local wave celerity, which is determined interactively. The model is applied to cross-shore motions of regular waves including various types of breaking on plane sloping beaches and over submerged bars. Model results comprise time series of surface elevations and the spatial variation of phase-averaged quantities such as the wave height, the crest and trough elevations, the mean water level, and the depth-averaged undertow. Comparisons with physical experiments are presented. The phaseaveraged balance of the individual terms in the momentum and energy equation is determined by time-integration and quantities such as the cross-sectional roller area, the radiation stress, the energy flux and the energy dissipation are studied and discussed with reference to conventional phase-averaged wave models. The companion papers present cross-shore motions of breaking irregular waves, swash oscillations and surf beats (part II) and nearshore circulations induced by breaking of unidirectional and multidirectional waves (part III).     

Surf zone dynamics simulated by a Boussinesq type model. Part II: surf beat and swash oscillations for wave groups and irregular waves

This is the second of three papers on the modelling of various types of surf zone phenomena. In the first paper the general model was described and it was applied to study cross-shore motion of regular waves in the surf zone. In this paper, part II, we consider the cross-shore motion of wave groups and irregular waves with emphasis on shoaling, breaking and runup as well as the generation of surf beats. These phenomena are investigated numerically by using a time-domain Boussinesq type model, which resolves the primary wave motion as well as the long waves. As compared with the classical Boussinesq equations, the equations adopted here allow for improved linear dispersion characteristics and wave breaking is modelled by using a roller concept for spilling breakers. The swash zone is included by incorporating a moving shoreline boundary condition and radiation of short and long period waves from the offshore boundary is allowed by the use of absorbing sponge layers. Mutual interaction between short waves and long waves is inherent in the model. This allows, for example, for a general exchange of energy between triads rather than a simple one-way forcing of bound waves and for a substantial modification of bore celerities in the swash zone due to the presence of long waves. The model study is based mainly on incident bichromatic wave groups considering a range of mean frequencies, group frequencies, modulation rates, sea bed slopes and surf similarity parameters. Additionally, two cases of incident irregular waves are studied. The model results presented include transformation of surface elevations during shoaling, breaking and runup and the resulting shoreline oscillations. The low frequency motion induced by the primary-wave groups is determined at the shoreline and outside the surf zone by low-pass filtering and subsequent division into incident bound and free components and reflected free components. The model results are compared with laboratory experiments from the literature and the agreement is generally found to be very good. Finally the paper includes special details from the breaker model: time and space trajectories of surface rollers revealing the breakpoint oscillation and the speed of bores; envelopes of low-pass filtered radiation stress and surface elevation; sensitivity of surf beat to group frequency, modulation rate and bottom slope is investigated. Part III of this work (Sørensen et al., 1998) presents nearshore circulations induced by the breaking of unidirectional and multi-directional waves.     

On low-frequency waves in the surf and swash

Low-frequency waves in the surf and swash zones on various beach slopes are discussed using numerical simulations. Simulated surface elevations of both primary waves and low-frequency waves across the surf zone were first compared with experimental data and good agreement found. Low-frequency wave characteristics are then discussed in terms of their physical nature and their relationship to the primary wave field on a series of sea bottom slopes. Unlike primary waves, low-frequency wave energy increases towards the shoreline. Low-frequency waves in the surf and swash are a function of incident waves and the sea bottom slope and hence the saturation level of the surf zone. Wave energy on a gently sloping beach is dominated by low-frequency waves while primary waves play a significant role on a steep beach. Low-frequency wave radiation from the surf zone on a given beach depends on primary wave frequency and beach slope. However, a very poor correlation was found between surf similarity parameter and low-frequency wave radiation.     

Wave Decay and Its Characteristics in Surf Zone

In accordance with the similarity between breaking waves and hydraulic jumps, the expressions for estimating wave decay and wave energy dissipation in the surf zone are derived based on the fundamental equations of fluid mechanics. Using the numerical solution of cnoidal wave theory, the various kinematic properties of waves in the surf zone, including the relative wave crest height, wave energy, and radiation stress are discussed. The values calculated with the method proposed in this paper are in good agreement with the experimental data gained by other researchers. The present expressions can be used in the studies of sediment transport on gently sloping beaches, especially on muddy beaches.     

浅滩地形上波浪破碎对低频波能放大的影响

低频长波对港湾共振、泥沙输运、波浪爬高与越浪等过程有重要影响。采用非静压模型SWASH模拟了不规则波在浅滩上的传播及破碎过程,重点探讨了滩顶短波破碎程度对低频波能演变的影响。模拟结果显示,当滩顶短波处于临界破碎状态时,低频波能流沿浅滩持续增长,浅滩对低频长波的放大效应（滩后与滩前低频波能流之比）显著;当滩顶短波轻微破碎、破波仅发生在外破波区时,低频波能流的沿滩增长率进一步变大;当滩顶短波剧烈破碎、破波延续到内破波区时,低频波能流沿滩先增长而后转为衰减,滩后放大率较临界破碎时明显减小。研究结果表明,浅滩顶部水深改变了短波破碎程度,进而影响低频长波的演化过程,浅滩上长波总体增长率随滩顶水深的减小呈现先增大后减小的规律,在短波轻微破碎时最大。     

潜堤上规则波辐射应力的数值研究

在近岸波浪相关研究中,辐射应力是波动在水体中引起的剩余动量流,是波浪运动的重要物理量.在波浪从深水逐渐传向浅水的过程中,波浪的非线性逐渐增强,甚至会发生破碎等剧烈变形,引起辐射应力的强烈变化,对次重力波生成等有重要贡献.应用OpenFOAM精细模拟波浪在潜堤上的传播,得出波浪运动的详细流场信息,计算了有波浪破碎情况下潜...     

Rip current spacing

Mass, momentum and energy conservation laws, including the radiation stress, are used to derive an equation of the eigenvalues of rip current spacing.A coastal region with linear bottom slope is divided into two parts: Offshore region and surfzone separated by the breaker line. Wave set-up, wave energy and mean current are assumed to be composed of basic state, which is a function of the distance from the coast to offshore only, and of superposed two-dimensional perturbations.In the case of normal incidence of waves, basic steady current system vanishes and perturbations are found to be of cellular shape. According to the boundary conditions at the coast, stream function of perturbed motion in the surfzone can be represented by the confluent hypergeometric function, while in the offshore zone it is approximated by the modified Bessel function.Interpolation of the stream functions in the surf and offshore regions enables us to obtain a characteristic relation which gives the eigenvalues of nondimensional alongshore spacing of rip current system as a function of a parameter determined by the bottom friction coefficient, width of the surfzone and breaker height.     

Numerical study on vertical structures of undertow inside and outside the surf zone

Nearshore shoaling and breaking waves can drive a complex circulation system of wave-induced currents. In the cross-shore direction, the local vertical imbalance between the gradient of radiation stress and that of pressure due to the setup drives an offshore flow near the bottom, called ‘undertow’, which plays a significant role in the beach profile evolution and the structure stability in coastal regions. A 1DV undertow model was developed based on the relationship between the turbulent shear stress and t...     

Cross-shore mean flow in the surf zone

The seaward mean returnflow or undertow in the surf zone, which compensates for the shoreward mass flux above the wave trough level, is found to be driven by the force imbalance between the wave momentum flux on the one hand and the set-up on the other hand, in qualitative agreement with the model of Dyhr-Nielsen and Sørensen (1970). A model, which quantifies this imbalance, is shown to yield theoretical results in good accordance with experiments when the proper boundary conditions are accounted for.     

Numerical Simulation of Spatial Lag Between Wave Breaking Point and Location of Maximum Wave-Induced Current

A quasi three-dimensional numerical model of wave-driven coastal currents with the effects of surface rollers is developed for the study of the spatial lag between the location of the maximum wave-induced current and the wave breaking point.The governing equations are derived from Navier-Stokes equations and solved by the hybrid method combining the fractional step finite different method in the horizontal plane with a Galerkin finite element method in the vertical direction.The surface rollers effects are considered through incorporating the creation and evolution of the roller area into the free surface shear stress.An energy equation facilitates the computation process which transfers the wave breaking energy dissipation to the surface roller energy.The wave driver model is a phase-averaged wave model based on the wave action balance equation.Two sets of laboratory experiments producing breaking waves that generated longshore currents on a planar beach are used to evaluate the model's performance.The present wave-driven coastal current model with the roller effect in the surface shear stress term can produce satisfactory results by increasing the wave-induced nearshore current velocity inside the surf zone and shifting the location of the maximum longshore current velocity landward.     

Large-wave simulation of three-dimensional,cross-shore and oblique,spilling breaking on constant slope beach

In this work, the large-wave simulation (LWS) method is adapted for application in spilling wave breaking over a constant slope beach. According to LWS, large scales of velocities, pressure and free-surface elevation are numerically resolved, while the corresponding unresolved scale effects are taken into consideration by a subgrid scale (SGS) model for wave and eddy stresses. The model may be not fully applicable in very shallow water, close to the shoreline, where the unresolved, turbulent, free-surface oscillation is of the same order with the water depth. Time integration of the Euler equations is achieved by a two-stage fractional scheme, combined with a hybrid scheme for spatial discretization, consisting of finite difference and pseudospectral approximation methods. Model parameters are calibrated by comparison to available experimental data of free-surface elevation and velocities in the surf zone for cross-shore incoming waves. The action of the wave SGS stresses in the outer coastal and surf zones initiates breaking and generates appropriate vorticity, in the form of an eddy structure (surface roller), at the breaking wavefront. At incipient breaking, both advection and gravity contribute to the vorticity flux at the free surface, while only after the full development of the surface roller, the effect of advection becomes stronger. The SGS model is also utilized to simulate propagation, refraction and breaking of oblique incoming waves. The gradual breaking and dissipation of wave crestlines and the surface roller structure along the breaking wavefront are automatically captured without any empirical input, such as data for the roller shape or the wave propagation angle at breaking.     

On Radiation Boundary Conditions and Wave Transformation Across the Surf Zone

The purpose of this paper is to extend the validity of Li's parabolic model (1994) by incorporating a combined energy factor in the mild-slope equation and by improving the traditional radiation boundary conditions. With wave breaking and energy dissipation expressed in a direct form in the equation, the proposed model could provide an efficient numerical scheme and accurate predictions of wave transformation across the surf zone. The radiation boundary conditions are iterated in the model without use of approximations. The numerical predictions for wave height distributions across the surf zone are compared with experimental data over typical beach profiles. In addition, tests of waves scattering around a circular pile show that the proposed model could also provide reasonable improvement on the radiation boundary conditions for large incident angles of waves.     

Implementation and modification of a three-dimensional radiation stress formulation for surf zone and rip-current applications

Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS v 3.0), a three-dimensional numerical ocean model, was previously enhanced for shallow water applications by including wave-induced radiation stress forcing provided through coupling to wave propagation models (SWAN, REF/DIF). This enhancement made it suitable for surf zone applications as demonstrated using examples of obliquely incident waves on a planar beach and rip current formation in longshore bar trough morphology (Haas and Warner, 2009). In this contribution, we present an update to the coupled model which implements a wave roller model and also a modified method of the radiation stress term based on Mellor (2008, 2011a,b,in press) that includes a vertical distribution which better simulates non-conservative (i.e., wave breaking) processes and appears to be more appropriate for sigma coordinates in very shallow waters where wave breaking conditions dominate. The improvements of the modified model are shown through simulations of several cases that include: (a) obliquely incident spectral waves on a planar beach; (b) obliquely incident spectral waves on a natural barred beach (DUCK'94 experiment); (c) alongshore variable offshore wave forcing on a planar beach; (d) alongshore varying bathymetry with constant offshore wave forcing; and (e) nearshore barred morphology with rip-channels. Quantitative and qualitative comparisons to previous analytical, numerical, laboratory studies and field measurements show that the modified model replicates surf zone recirculation patterns (onshore drift at the surface and undertow at the bottom) more accurately than previous formulations based on radiation stress (Haas and Warner, 2009). The results of the model and test cases are further explored for identifying the forces operating in rip current development and the potential implication for sediment transport and rip channel development. Also, model analysis showed that rip current strength is higher when waves approach at angles of 5° to 10° in comparison to normally incident waves.     

Laboratory study of wave and turbulence characteristics in narrow-band irregular breaking waves

Wave elevations and water particle velocities were measured in a laboratory surf zone created by the breaking of a narrow-band irregular wave train on a 1/35 plane slope. The incident waves form wave groups that are strongly modulated. It is found that the waves that break close to the shoreline generally have larger wave-height-to-water-depth ratios before breaking than the waves that break farther offshore. After breaking, the wave-height-to-water-depth ratio for the individual waves approaches a constant value in the inner surf zone, while the standard deviation of the wave period increases as the still water depth decreases. In the outer surf zone, the distribution of the period-averaged turbulent kinetic energy is closely correlated to the initial wave heights, and has a wider variation for narrow-band waves than for broad-band waves. In the inner surf zone, the distribution of the period-averaged turbulent kinetic energy is similar for narrow-band waves and broad-band waves. It is found that the wave elevation and turbulent kinetic energy time histories for the individual waves in a wave group are qualitatively similar to those found in a spilling regular wave. The time-averaged transport of turbulent kinetic energy by the ensemble-averaged velocity and turbulence velocity under the irregular breaking waves are also consistent with the measurements obtained in regular breaking waves. The experimental results indicate that the shape of the incident wave spectrum has a significant effect on the temporal and spatial variability of wave breaking and the distribution of turbulent kinetic energy in the outer surf zone. In the inner surf zone, however, the distribution of turbulent kinetic energy is relatively insensitive to the shape of the incident wave spectrum, and the important parameters are the significant wave height and period of the incident waves, and the beach slope.     

Modelling of periodic wave transformation in the inner surf zone

In this paper, we analyse the ability of the nonlinear shallow-water (NSW) equations to predict wave distortion and energy dissipation of periodic broken waves in the inner surf zone. This analysis is based on the weak-solution theory for conservative equations. We derive a new one-way model, which applies to the transformation of non-reflective periodic broken waves on gently sloping beaches. This model can be useful to develop breaking-wave parameterizations (in particular broken-wave celerity expression) in both time-averaged wave models and time-dependent Boussinesq-type models. We also derive a new wave set-up equation which provides a simple and explicit relation between wave set-up and energy dissipation. Finally, we compare numerical simulations of both, the NSW model and the simplified one-way model, with spilling wave breaking experiments and we find a good agreement.     

Turbulence and energy dissipations of surf-zone spilling breakers

A laboratory study on the turbulence and wave energy dissipations of spilling breakers in a surf zone is presented. Instantaneous velocity fields of propagating breaking waves on a 1/20 slope were measured using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). Due to the large region of the evolving wave breaking generated turbulent flow, seven PIV fields of view (FOVs) were mosaicked to form a continuous flow field in the surf zone. Mean and turbulence quantities were extracted by ensemble averaging 25 repeated instantaneous measurements at each FOV. New results for distribution and evolution of turbulent kinetic energy, mean flow energy, and total energy across the surf zone were obtained from analyzing the data. The turbulence dissipation rate was estimated based on several different approaches. It was found that the vertical distribution of the turbulence dissipation rate decays exponentially from the crest level to the bottom. The resulting energy budget and energy flux were also calculated. The calculated total energy dissipation rate was compared to that based on a bore approximation. It was found that the ratio of turbulence dissipation rate to total energy dissipation rate was about 0.01 in the outer surf zone and increased to about 0.1 after the breaking waves transformed into developed turbulent bores in the inner surf zone.     

Mass flux and undertow in a surf zone

The mass of water carried shoreward by the breaking waves in a surf zone will, in a two-dimensional situation, be compensated by a seaward return flow, the undertow. It is shown that the undertow is driven by the local difference between radiation stress and the set-up pressure gradient which only balance each other in average over the depth. Turbulent shear stresses are required to maintain a steady situation. Comparison with measurements confirms the theoretical results.