Longshore sediment transport: Bulk formulas and process based models

Longshore Sediment Transport (LST) is one of the main drivers of beach morphology. It works at temporal scales ranging from hours to centuries and at spatial scales ranging from tens of meters to hundreds of kilometres. Episodic, large LST rates can result in important physical impacts such as inlet closure, rapid build-up of ebb/flood shoals,...

Nonlinear infragravity–wave interactions on a gently sloping laboratory beach

A high-resolution dataset of three irregular wave conditions collected on a gently sloping laboratory beach is analyzed to study nonlinear energy transfers involving infragravity frequencies. This study uses bispectral analysis to identify the dominant, nonlinear interactions and estimate energy transfers to investigate energy flows within the...

Modelling Vertical Variation of Turbulent Flow Across a Surf Zone Using SWASH

This paper presents the application of the open source non-hydrostatic wave-flow model SWASH to propagation of irregular waves in a barred surf zone, and the model results are discussed by comparing against an extensive laboratory data set. This study focus not only on wave transformation in the surf zone, but also on the numerical prediction of...

Wind and waves in extreme hurricanes

Waves breaking at the ocean surface are important to the dynamical, chemical and biological processes at the air-sea interface. The traditional view is that the white capping and aero-dynamical surface roughness increase with wind speed up to a limiting value. This view is fundamental to hurricane forecasting and climate research but it has...

Modelling wave transformation across a fringing reef using swash

This paper presents the application of the open source non-hydrostatic wave-flow model SWASH to wave propagation over a fringing reef, and the results are discussed and compared with observations obtained from a laboratory experiment subjected to various incident wave conditions. This study focus not only on wave breaking, bottom friction, and...

Modelling wave transformation across a fringing reef using SWASH

This paper presents the application of the open source non-hydrostatic wave-flow model SWASH to wave propagation over a fringing reef, and the results are discussed and compared with observations obtained from a laboratory experiment subjected to various incident wave conditions. This study focus not only on wave breaking, bottom friction, and...

Dune erosion during storm surges

Large parts of The Netherlands are protected from flooding by a narrow strip of sandy beaches and dunes. The aim of this thesis is to extend the existing knowledge of dune erosion during storm surges as it occurs along the Dutch coast. The thesis discusses: • A large scale dune erosion experiment to obtain better insight in near dune...

Experimental study of blockage of monochromatic waves by counter currents

Blockage of waves by a current can occur if waves are propagating on a spatially varying opposing current in which the velocity is increasing in the wave propagation direction. The ongoing waves become shorter and steeper while they are propagating against the current. Blocking occurs at the location where the opposing current strength is the...

Spectral evolution in waves traveling over a shoal

Nonlinear aspects of breaking and non-breaking waves propagating over a submerged trapezoidal bar have been investigated by laboratory experiments, with special emphasis on the generation of high-frequency energy. Data collected from the measurements are used for computing spectral and bispectral estimates in order to assess the contribution of...

Random wave breaking and induced currents

The radiation stress concept is basic to the description of currents induced by waves. Gradients of the excess momentum flux due to the presence of waves (or radiation stress) appear as volume forces in the time- and depth-integrated horizontal momentum balance equations. Combined with the continuity equation these three equations yield the mean...

Influence of ambient air pressure on impact pressure caused by breaking waves

Engineers are interested in the dynamics of the interface waterstructure. In case of breaking of water waves on a structure high positive and sometimes negative pressures of very short duration occur. Not only the maxima and minima of the pressures on the structure are important to a designing engineer, but also the pressure-time history:...

Energy loss and set-up due to breaking random waves

A description is given of a model developed for the prediction of the dissipation of energy in random waves breaking on a beach. The dissipation rate per breaking wave is estimated from that in a bore of corresponding height, while the probability of occurrence of breaking waves is estimated on the basis of a wave height distribution with an...