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

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

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 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

Beach Profile Changes under Sea Level Rise in Laboratory Flume Experiments at Different Scale

Laboratory wave flume experiments have been used to provide improved understanding of beach profile evolution under different wave and water level conditions. However, the understanding of the processes involved in the evolution of beach profile under Sea Level Rise (SLR) toward equilibrium is unclear. Two similar, but distorted experiments were performed at large and medium scale in order to study the qualitative morphological changes involved in beach profile evolution under SLR. Both experiments showed similar beach profile evolution. The profile change predicted by the Profile Translation Model (PTM) and the Bruun Rule underestimated the observed reatreat in both experiments. The length of the active beach profile increased under SLR. For the large scale experiment, the reflection coefficient of the beach decreased while the vertical runup increased significantly. The beachface changed faster than the outer surf zone, making the beach more dissipative

A new approach for scaling beach profile evolution and sediment transport rates in distorted laboratory models

Laboratory wave flume experiments in coastal engineering and physical oceanography are widely used to provide an improved understanding of morphodynamic processes. Wave flume facilities around the world vary greatly in their physical dimensions and differences in the resulting distortion of the modelled processes are reconciled using scaling laws. However, it is known that perfect model-prototype scaling of all hydro and morphodynamic processes is rarely possible and there is a lack of understanding to what extent distorted models can be used for direct morphological comparison. To address this issue, distorted scale laboratory flume experiments were undertaken in three different facilities, with the aim to measure and compare beach profile evolution under erosive waves and increasing water levels. A novel approach was developed to transform and scale the different experimental geometries into dimensionless coordinates, which enabled a direct quantitative comparison of the beach profile evolution and sediment transport rates between the differing distorted experimental scales. Comparing results from the three experiments revealed that the dimensionless scaled morphological behaviour was similar after the same number of waves – despite very different degrees of model distortion. The distorted profiles appeared to be suitable for comparison as long as a modified version of the Dean number is maintained between them. The new method was then validated with two further published datasets, and showed good agreement for both dimensionless profile shape, dimensionless sediment transport and morphodynamics parameters. The new approach scales the sediment transport by the square of the runup, proportional to HL, rather than H2, and yields good agreement between the datasets. It is further shown that the new scaling method is also applicable for comparing distorted profile evolution under water level increase, as long as the water level is raised in a similar way between the experiments and by the same total increment relative to the significant wave height (Δh/Hs).</p