Wave height

About: Wave height is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5920 publications have been published within this topic receiving 100257 citations.

Mathematical Model for Littoral Drift

Abstract: The longshore sediment transport along the coast is investigated by use of detailed sediment transport models in the surf zone. Combined with a detailed description of the wave height and longshore current distribution in the surf-zone, the littoral drift along the coast is calculated and presented in dimensionless diagrams for coasts with constant slope. The paper further analyzes the transverse distribution of the long-shore sediment transport on a coast with bars. The last case is compared with field measurements.

Observations of Surface Wave–Current Interaction

Abstract: Wave–current interaction can result in significant inhomogeneities of the ocean surface wave field, including modulation of the spectrum, wave breaking rates, and wave statistics. This study presents novel airborne observations from two experiments: 1) the High-Resolution Air–Sea Interaction (HiRes) experiment, with measurements across an upwelling jet off the coast of Northern California, and 2) an experiment in the Gulf of Mexico with measurements of waves interacting with the Loop Current and associated eddies. The significant wave height and slope varies by up to 30% because of these interactions at both sites, whereas whitecap coverage varies by more than an order of magnitude. Whitecap coverage is well correlated with spectral moments, negatively correlated with the directional spreading, and positively correlated with the saturation. Surface wave statistics measured in the Gulf of Mexico, including wave crest heights and lengths of crests per unit surface area, show good agreement with seco...

Beach systems of the Sydney region

Abstract: Summary The Sydney coast exhibits some of the world's most dynamic beaches. This is a consequence of a combination of a moderate to high energy though highly variable wave climate, a steep inner continental shelf which allows most of this energy to reach the shore, and pronounced alongshore gradients in energy produced by varying degrees of headland protection along the highly embayed coastline. Consequently a high degree of variability exists both temporally and spatially within and between Sydney beaches both in terms of wave height and resultant beach form. This paper examines the results of this spatial variation as well as the nature and effect of wave climate on temporal variation in the typical beach form. Modes of beach erosion operating on the beaches are considered in terms of particular combinations of wave conditions and antecedent beach states.

Modelling of multi-bodies in close proximity under water waves: Fluid resonance in narrow gaps

Abstract: Viscous fluid model and potential flow model with and without artificial damping force (f = −µV, µ the damping coefficient and V the local averaging flow velocity) are employed in this work to investigate the phenomenon of fluid resonance in narrow gaps between multi-bodies in close proximity under water waves. The numerical results are compared with experimental data available in the literature. The comparison demonstrates that both the viscous fluid model and the potential flow model are able to predict the resonant frequency reasonably well. However the conventional potential flow model (without artificial damping term) significantly over-predicts the wave height in narrow gaps around the resonant frequency. In order to calibrate the appropriate damping coefficient used for the potential model and make it work as well as the viscous fluid model in predicting the resonant wave height in narrow gaps but with little computational efforts, the dependence of damping coefficient µ on the body geometric dimensions is examined considering the parameters of gap width B g, body draft D, body breadth ratio B r and body number n (n = 2, 3), where B r = B B/B A for the case of two bodies (Body A and Body B) with different breadths of B A and B B, respectively. It was confirmed that the damping coefficient used for the potential flow model is not sensitive to the geometric dimensions and spatial arrangement. It was found that µ ∈ [0.4, 0.5] may guarantee the variation of H g/H 0 with kh to be generally in good agreement with the experimental data and the results of viscous fluid model, where H g is the excited wave height in narrow gaps under various dimensionless incident wave frequencies kh, H 0 is the incident wave height, k = 2π/L is the wave number and h is the water depth.