Practical sand transport formula for non-breaking waves and currents

AbstractMany existing practical sand transport formulae for the coastal marine environment are restricted to a limited range of hydrodynamic and sand conditions. This paper presents a new practical formula for net sand transport induced by non-breaking waves and currents. The formula is especially developed for cross-shore sand transport under wave-dominated conditions and is based on the semi-unsteady, half wave-cycle concept, with bed shear stress as the main forcing parameter. Unsteady phase-lag effects between velocities and concentrations, which are especially important for rippled bed and fine sand sheet-flow conditions, are accounted for through parameterisations. Recently-recognised effects on the net transport rate related to flow acceleration skewness and progressive surface waves are also included. To account for the latter, the formula includes the effects of boundary layer streaming and advection effects which occur under real waves, but not in oscillatory tunnel flows. The formula is developed using a database of 226 net transport rate measurements from large-scale oscillatory flow tunnels and a large wave flume, covering a wide range of full-scale flow conditions and uniform and graded sands with median diameter ranging from 0.13mm to 0.54mm. Good overall agreement is obtained between observed and predicted net transport rates with 78% of the predictions falling within a factor 2 of the measurements. For several distinctly different conditions, the behaviour of the net transport with increasing flow strength agrees well with observations, indicating that the most important transport processes in both the rippled bed and sheet flow regime are well captured by the formula. However, for some flow conditions good quantitative agreement could only be obtained by introducing separate calibration parameters. The new formula has been validated against independent net transport rate data for oscillatory flow conditions and steady flow conditions