Swashzone Fluid Velocities

The overall objective of these projects is to improve models for fluid velocities in the swash zone. Although runup excursions and cross-shore swashzone velocities owing to random waves on a natural beach are predicted well by a model (Rbreak) based on the vertically-averaged nonlinear shallow water equations with quadratic bottom friction (Kobayashi et al. 1989, Raubenheimer et al. 1995, Raubenheimer 2002), it is not clear whether the alongshore velocities are predicted accurately. Furthermore, despite recent results that suggest alongshore sediment transport occurs primarily in the swash and outer surf zones (Bodge and Dean 1987, Kamphuis 1991, Thornton and Abdelrahman 1991), few studies have examined the importance of alongshore swashzone currents. The specific objectives of these projects are to: