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Numerical Modelling of Wave Fields and Currents in Coastal Area

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A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Oceans and Coastal Zones".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 April 2020) | Viewed by 15957

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Francesco Gallerano

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Guest Editor

Department of Civil, Constructional and Environmental Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
Interests: computational hydraulics; coastal engineering; fluid mechanics; numerical modelling; shock-capturing schemes; curvilinear coordinate systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The design and management of coastal engineering works, like harbours or coastal defence structures, requires the simulation of the hydrodynamic phenomena that characterize the nearshore region “ante operam” and “post operam”. The simulation of wave fields and wave-induced nearshore currents is necessary, both to evaluate the actions exerted by the sea on coastal structures and to forecast the effect produced by these structures on the shoreline’s morphological evolution. In fact, wave motion and wave-induced nearshore currents, besides exerting a mechanical pull on the coastal structure, are mainly responsible for coastal sediment transport phenomena.

This Special Issue focuses on the numerical simulation of wave fields and wave-induced currents in coastal areas. It welcomes research into all aspects of numerical models for the simulation of free-surface elevation and velocity fields induced by wave motion. The topics of this Special Issue range from new numerical schemes for the simulation of wave propagation and evolution from deep water to shoreline, to numerical investigation of specific problems, like wave-breaking, turbulence models, swash zone hydrodynamics, or the simulation of the oscillating wave boundary layer. Original contributions are encouraged concerning the theoretical aspects of the numerical model, specific aspects of the adopted numerical scheme, or the application of the numerical model to a practical engineering case study.

Prof. Francesco Gallerano
Guest Editor

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Keywords

Wave simulation
Wave breaking
Turbulence model
Numerical scheme
Wave boundary layer
Swash zone hydrodynamics
Nearshore currents

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Editorial

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7 pages, 193 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Numerical Modelling of Wave Fields and Currents in Coastal Area

by Francesco Gallerano

Water 2020, 12(6), 1582; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12061582 - 02 Jun 2020

Viewed by 1507

Abstract

The design and management of coastal engineering, like harbors and coastal defense structures, requires the simulation of hydrodynamic phenomena. This special issue collects five original papers that address state of the art numerical simulations of wave fields and wave-induced velocity fields in coastal areas. The first paper proposes a turbulence model for wave breaking simulation, which is expressed in terms of turbulent kinetic energy and dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy (k − ε); the proposed turbulence model is a modification of the standard k − ε turbulence models. The second paper investigates modalities by which wind interacts with wave motion, modifying the wave propagation dynamic. The third paper proposes a study on waves overtopping over coastal barriers. The fourth paper details the numerical simulation of a tsunami wave that propagates over an artificial reservoir, caused by a landslide that creates a solid mass to detach from the slopes and to slide into the reservoir. The fifth paper examines an application case concerning Cetraro harbor (Italy), which is carried out using three-dimensional numerical simulations of wave motion. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Numerical Modelling of Wave Fields and Currents in Coastal Area)

Research

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19 pages, 6896 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

A Three-Dimensional Numerical Study of Wave Induced Currents in the Cetraro Harbour Coastal Area (Italy)

by Giovanni Cannata, Federica Palleschi, Benedetta Iele and Francesco Cioffi

Water 2020, 12(4), 935; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12040935 - 26 Mar 2020

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2435

Abstract

In this paper we propose a three-dimensional numerical study of the coastal currents produced by the wave motion in the area opposite the Cetraro harbour (Italy), during the most significant wave event for the coastal sediment transport. The aim of the present study is the characterization of the current patterns responsible for the siltation that affects the harbour entrance area and the assessment of a project solution designed to limit this phenomenon. The numerical simulations are carried out by a three-dimensional non-hydrostatic model that is based on the Navier–Stokes equations expressed in integral and contravariant form on a time-dependent curvilinear coordinate system, in which the vertical coordinate moves in order to follow the free surface variations. The numerical simulations are carried out in two different geometric configurations: a present configuration, that reproduces the geometry of the coastal defence structures currently present in the harbour area and a project configuration, which reproduces the presence of a breakwater designed to modify the coastal currents in the area opposite the harbour entrance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Numerical Modelling of Wave Fields and Currents in Coastal Area)

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21 pages, 6574 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Study on the Nearshore Evolution of Regular Waves under Steady Wind

by Changbo Jiang, Yang Yang and Bin Deng

Water 2020, 12(3), 686; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12030686 - 03 Mar 2020

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3301

Abstract

We present a study on regular wave propagation on a sloping bed under the action of steady wind, which is of a great significance to complement and replenish the interaction mechanisms of nearshore wave and wind. Physical experiments were conducted in a wind-wave flume, and the corresponding numerical model was constructed based on the solver Waves2FOAM in OpenFOAM, with large-eddy simulation (LES) used to investigate the turbulent flow. The comparisons between the measured and calculated results of the free surface elevation and flow velocity indicated that the numerical model could predict the associated hydrodynamic characteristics of a nearshore wave regardless of the presence or absence of wind. The results showed that wind had a significant impact on nearshore wave evolution. It was found that under the same wind speed coverage constraint, wave breaking occurred ahead of time. The smaller the surf similarity

ξ_{0}

was, the higher the dispersion degree of wave breaking locations would be, and the breaker index of

H_{b} / h_{b}

increased with wind speed under the same incident wave height. The main components of analysis for turbulent flow were the results of the cross-spectrum, the TKE (turbulent kinetic energy), and TDR (turbulent dissipation rate). The cross-spectrum illustrated that wind enhanced the degree of coherence of the residual velocity components and aggravated turbulence. The TKE indicated that in regions near the water surface, wind speed made it considerably larger and the average level rapidly decreased with depth. The TDR exhibited that the significant effect of wind was merely imposed after breaking, wherein the turbulence penetrated the deeper flow and the average level generally rose. The velocity profile on the slope showed that the wind accelerated the undertow, and the moment statistics indicated that the velocity distribution deviated gradually from the Gaussian distribution to the right. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Numerical Modelling of Wave Fields and Currents in Coastal Area)

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17 pages, 4823 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Numerical and Experimental Investigation of Wave Overtopping of Barriers

by Giovanni Cannata, Marco Tamburrino, Simone Ferrari, Maria Grazia Badas and Giorgio Querzoli

Water 2020, 12(2), 451; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12020451 - 08 Feb 2020

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2005

Abstract

We present a study of wave overtopping of barriers. The phenomenon of the wave overtopping over emerged structures is reproduced both numerically and experimentally. The numerical simulations are carried out by a numerical scheme for three-dimensional free-surface flows, which is based on the solution of the Navier–Stokes equations in a novel integral form on a time-dependent coordinate system. In the adopted numerical scheme, a novel wet–dry technique, based on the exact solution of the Riemann problem over the dry bed, is proposed. The experimental tests are carried out by adopting a nonintrusive and continuous-in-space image-analysis technique, which is able to properly identify the free surface even in very shallow waters or breaking waves. A comparison between numerical and experimental results, for several wave and water-depth conditions, is shown. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Numerical Modelling of Wave Fields and Currents in Coastal Area)

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13 pages, 3636 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Modified k – ε Turbulence Model for a Wave Breaking Simulation

by Giovanni Cannata, Federica Palleschi, Benedetta Iele and Francesco Gallerano

Water 2019, 11(11), 2282; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11112282 - 31 Oct 2019

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2873

Abstract

We propose a two-equation turbulence model based on modification of the

k - ε

standard model, for simulation of a breaking wave. The proposed model is able to adequately simulate the energy dissipation due to the wave breaking and does not require any [...] Read more.

We propose a two-equation turbulence model based on modification of the

k - ε

standard model, for simulation of a breaking wave. The proposed model is able to adequately simulate the energy dissipation due to the wave breaking and does not require any “a priori” criterion to locate the initial wave breaking point and the region in which the turbulence model has to be activated. In order to numerically simulate the wave propagation from deep water to the shoreline and the wave breaking, we use a model in which vector and tensor quantities are expressed in terms of Cartesian components, where only the vertical coordinate is expressed as a function of a time-dependent curvilinear coordinate that follows the free surface movements. A laboratory test is numerically reproduced with the aim of validating the turbulence modified

k - ε

model. The numerical results compared with the experimental measurements show that the proposed turbulence model is capable of correctly estimating the energy dissipation induced by the wave breaking, in order to avoid any underestimation of the wave height. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Numerical Modelling of Wave Fields and Currents in Coastal Area)

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17 pages, 5560 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Efficient and Accurate 3-D Numerical Modelling of Landslide Tsunami

by Guodong Li, Guoding Chen, Pengfeng Li and Haixiao Jing

Water 2019, 11(10), 2033; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11102033 - 29 Sep 2019

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3114

Abstract

High-speed and accurate simulations of landslide-generated tsunamis are of great importance for the understanding of generation and propagation of water waves and for prediction of these natural disasters. A three-dimensional numerical model, based on Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations, is developed to simulate the landslide-generated tsunami. Available experiment data is used to validate the numerical model and to investigate the scale effect of numerical model according to the Froude similarity criterion. Based on grid convergence index (GCI) analysis, fourteen cases are arranged to study the sensitivity of numerical results to mesh resolution. Results show that numerical results are more sensitive to mesh resolution in near field than that in the propagation field. Nonuniform meshes can be used to balance the computational efficiency and accuracy. A mesh generation strategy is proposed and validated, achieving an accurate prediction and nearly 22 times reduction of computational cost. Further, this strategy of mesh generation is applied to simulate the Laxiwa Reservoir landslide tsunami. The results of this study provide an important guide for the establishment of a numerical model of the real-world problem of landslide tsunami. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Numerical Modelling of Wave Fields and Currents in Coastal Area)

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