Validation of an advective-deterministic approach to short wave breaking in a surf-beat model

Abstract

An advective-deterministic approach (ADA) to model wave energy dissipation through breaking is presented. This is calibrated against experimental irregular wave data with a high spatial density of surface elevation records using a wave-group-forced surf-beat model, XBeach. In the ADA breaker model, wave breaking is turned on and off by specifying upper and lower values of the breaker parameter (the latter termed wave reforming as in Dally et al. (1985)) and the state of breaking is advected shoreward at the individual wave celerity. For the validation of the proposed ADA model, results are compared with the breaker formulation of Roelvink (1993) using 10 prototype field experiment cases and 32 laboratory flume experiment cases. The ADA breaker model shows good results for short wave height transformation and significant improvement is obtained for the fraction of breaking waves over the Roelvink (1993) formulation, with the modelled data quantitatively and qualitatively representing measurements. It is possible that the ADA wave breaking model could influence other surf zone processes such as low frequency wave generation and nearshore circulation patterns. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.