Bed shear stress measurements over rough fixed and mobile sediment beds in swash flows

Direct measurements of bed shear stress have been conducted over rough fixed and mobile sediment beds in dambreak driven swash flows. The comparison between rough fixed and mobile bed results indicated the significant importance of grain borne shear stress component, induced by increased dispersive stress and the momentum transfer by moving sediment grains to the bed. The increase of the averaged peak bed shear stress under mobile sediment beds can be up to 100% of that for fixed beds. The direct incorporation of the shear stress data into the classic MeyerPeter&Muller (1948) bed load model leads to over-estimate of bed load transport rate and reveals the fact of starved bed conditions applied in the present experiments

An analytical model for bore-driven run-up

We use a hodograph transformation and a boundary integral method to derive a new analytical solution to the shallow-water equations describing bore-generated run-up on a plane beach. This analytical solution differs from the classical Shen-Meyer runup solution in giving significantly deeper and less asymmetric swash flows, and also by predicting the inception of a secondary bore in both the backwash and the uprush in long surf. We suggest that this solution provides a significantly improved model for flows including swash events and the run-up following breaking tsunamis

Measurement and modeling of solitary wave induced bed shear stress over a rough bed

Bed shear stresses generated by solitary waves were measured using a shear cell apparatus over a rough bed in laminar and transitional flow regimes (~7600 < Re < ~60200). Modeling of bed shear stress was carried out using analytical models employing convolution integration methods forced with the free stream velocity and three eddy viscosity models. The measured wave height to water depth (h/d) ratio varied between 0.13 and 0.65; maximum near- bed velocity varied between 0.16 and 0.47 m/s and the maximum total shear stress (sum of form drag and bed shear) varied between 0.565 and 3.29 Pa. Wave friction factors estimated from the bed shear stresses at the maximum bed shear stress using both maximum and instantaneous velocities showed that there is an increase in friction factors estimated using instantaneous velocities, for non-breaking waves. Maximum positive total stress was approximately 2.2 times larger than maximum negative total stress for non-breaking waves. Modeled and measured positive total stresses are well correlated using the convolution model with an eddy viscosity model analogous to steady flow conditions (nu_t=0.45u* z1; where nu_t is eddy viscosity, u* is shear velocity and z1 is the elevation parameter related to relative roughness). The bed shear stress leads the free stream fluid velocity by approximately 30° for non-breaking waves and by 48° for breaking waves, which is under-predicted by 27% by the convolution model with above mentioned eddy viscosity model

Measurements and modeling of direct bed shear stress under solitary waves

Source: ICHE Conference Archive - https://mdi-de.baw.de/icheArchiv

STRAND: A Model for Longshore Sediment Transport in the Swash Zone

In this paper we report on the development and performance of an engineering model, STRAND which has the aim of predicting longshore movement of coarse sediment above the still water line of steep beaches. The model assumes that this transport is driven by swash run-up at the edge of an unsaturated inner surfzone and uses Nielsen's (1992) formulation for sediment transport rate. The hydrodynamic sub-model is shown to agree well with field measurements of swash run-up and swash period. We argue that consideration of interactions between subsequent swash events implies that a monotonic relationship between transport rate and incident wave period is inappropriate. Bulk longshore transport rates are shown to compare reasonably with previous estimates from field studies in the UK and accounts for up to 50% of the net longshore flux. Agreement of this simplified model with one of the best available laboratory data sets, Kamphuis (1991a,b), is very good indeed. However, new laboratory and field data are required before stronger conclusions can be drawn

Measurement and modeling of the influence of grain size and pressure gradients on swash zone sediment transport

The paper examines the dependency between sediment transport rate, q, and grain size, D, (i.e. q∝Dp) in the swash zone. Experiments were performed using a dam break flow as a proxy for swash overtopping on a mobile sediment beach. The magnitude and nature of the dependency (i.e. p value) is inferred for different flow parameters; the initial dam depth (or initial bore height), do, the integrated depth averaged velocity, ∫u3 dt, and against the predicted transport, qp using the Meyer-Peter Muller (MPM) transport model. Experiments were performed over both upward sloping beds and a horizontal bed. The data show that negative dependencies (p0) are obtained for ∫u3 dt. This indicates that a given do and qp transport less sediment as grain size increases, whereas transport increases with grain size for a given ∫u3 dt. The p value is expected to be narrow ranged, 0.5≤ p≤-0.5. A discernible difference observed between the measured and predicted transport on horizontal and sloping beds suggests different modes of transport. The incorporation of a pressure gradient correction, dp/dx, using the surface water slope (i.e. piezometric head), in the transport calculation greatly improved the transport predictions on the horizontal bed, where dp/dx is positive. On average, the incorporation of a pressure gradient term into the MPM formulation reduces qp in the uprush by 4% (fine sand) to 18% (coarse sand) and increases qp over a horizontal bed by 1% (fine sand) to two orders of magnitude (coarse sand). The measured transport for fine and coarse sand are better predicted using MPM and MPM+dp/dx respectively. Poor predictions are obtained using Nielsen (2002) because the pressure gradient in the uprush is of opposite sign to that inferred from velocity data in that paper. It is suggested that future swash sediment transport models should incorporate the grain size effect, partly through the pressure gradient, although the dp/dx influence is small for fine sands because of the grain size scaling contained in the stress term

REPEATABILITY OF MORPHOLOGICAL CHANGE ON A SANDY BEACH ACROSS MULTIPLE TIMESCALES

The swash zone is a highly dynamic region of the nearshore in terms of both hydro- and sediment dynamics. Previous work has demonstrated that the majority of swash events transport only small amounts of sediment and net beachface volume change over several hours tends to be small. However, a small number of individual swash events can deposit or remove hundreds of kilograms of sediment per metre width of beach. These events are typically associated with swash flows that involve one or more highly turbulent swash-swash interactions, causing enhanced suspension and transport of sediment (Blenkinsopp et al. 2011). The timing and location of these interactions is complex and small changes in either can lead to very different local flow conditions. The complexity of these flows make sediment transport prediction on a swash-by-swash basis very challenging, and raises the question whether deterministic physical and numerical modelling of swash sediment transport is warranted. </jats:p