Sediment transport partitioning in the swash zone of a large-scale laboratory beach

Swash zone sheet flow and suspended sediment transport rates are estimated on a coarse sand beach constructed in a large-scale laboratory wave flume. Three test cases under monochromatic waves with wave heights of 0.74m and wave periods of 8 and 12.2s were analyzed. Sediment flux in the sheet flow l...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Coastal engineering (Amsterdam) 2016-07, Vol.113, p.73-87
Main Authors: Puleo, Jack A., Lanckriet, Thijs, Conley, Daniel, Foster, Diane
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Backwash
Beaches
Elevation
Flux
Measuring instruments
Sand
Sediment flux
Sediment transport
Sediments
Sheet flow
Suspended sediment
Swash zone
Velocity profile
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Summary:Swash zone sheet flow and suspended sediment transport rates are estimated on a coarse sand beach constructed in a large-scale laboratory wave flume. Three test cases under monochromatic waves with wave heights of 0.74m and wave periods of 8 and 12.2s were analyzed. Sediment flux in the sheet flow layer exceeds several hundred kgm−2s−1 during both uprush and backwash. Suspended sediment flux is large during uprush and can exceed 200kgm−2s−1. Instantaneous sediment flux magnitudes in the sheet layer are nearly always larger than those for suspended sediment flux. However, sediment transport rates, those integrated over depth, indicate that suspended load transport is dominant during uprush for all cases and during the early stages of backwash except in the case for the 12.2s wave case when the foreshore was steeper. Results could not be obtained for an entire swash event and were particularly truncated during backwash when water depths fell below the elevation of the lowest current meter. •Sheet flow flux estimates exceed suspended sediment flux.•Depth-integrated sediment transport is dominated by suspended load during uprush.•Sediment transport rates could not be estimated during the latter stages of backwash due to shallow water.
ISSN:0378-3839
1872-7379
DOI:10.1016/j.coastaleng.2015.11.001