Model for Bedload Transport under Waves

Abstract

Properly modeling the sediment transport under water waves is critical to understanding morphodynamic processes such as, e.g., sandbar migration at beaches. In the last two decades, the influence of the wave asymmetries (mainly velocity and acceleration skewnesses) has been shown to be a key issue for explaining onshore sandbar migrations under mild wave conditions when wave-induced currents are small. However, there is still a lack of knowledge, and the expressions that relate the sediment transport to the velocity and/or acceleration skewnesses are site-specific. In this work, an intrawave process-based sediment transport model was applied to provide a general expression for bedload sediment transport under wave action within a proper dimensional framework. The new expression is not site-specific, and it is based on the process-based model which was checked against experimental data. Furthermore, the obtained equation has some similarities with expressions in the literature that are discussed.