Numerical Study on Regular Wave Shoaling, De-Shoaling and Decomposition of Free/Bound Waves on Gentle and Steep Foreshores

Abstract

Numerical tests are performed to investigate wave transformations of nonlinear nonbreaking regular waves with normal incidence to the shore in decreasing and increasing water depth. The wave height transformation (shoaling) of nonlinear waves can, just as for linear waves, be described by conservation of the mechanical energy flux. The numerical tests show that the mechanical energy flux for nonlinear waves on sloping foreshores is well described by stream function wave theory for horizontal foreshore. Thus, this theory can be used to estimate the shoaled wave height. Furthermore, the amplitude and the celerity of the wave components of nonlinear waves on mildly sloping foreshores can also be predicted with the stream function wave theory. The tests also show that waves propagating to deeper water (de-shoaling) on a very gentle foreshore with a slope of cot(β) = 1200 can be described in the same way as shoaling waves. For de-shoaling on steeper foreshores, free waves are released leading to waves that are not of constant form and thus cannot be modelled by the proposed approach.