Development of a numerical model for simulating bed-level changes in front of a sea wall

Abstract

Anticipating the trend of seabed changes and scouring phenomena is one of the most important issues in coastal engineering, and several numerical models have already been presented to simulate coastal seabed evolutions and estimate the depth of scouring in front of coastal structures. The sea wall as a reflective structure plays an important role in protecting the coast, and how the presence or absence of these structures influences the sediment transport rate and consequently seabed changes should be studied more carefully. In this study, bed-profile changes and the potential for scouring were calculated by a numerical model at different locations in the vicinity of a sea wall. Unlike previous models in which the velocity of sediment particles was assumed to be equal to the velocity of water particles, a more detailed process was considered here to calculate the velocity of water and sediment particles. Finally, it became clear that using the sediment transport coefficient parameter did not significantly improve the seabed changes that were predicted by the modified model in the present study. This achievement shows the rationality of considering the velocity of sediment particles as being equal to the velocity of water particles in predicting seabed changes.