EFFECTS OF WAVE BREAKING AND BEACH SLOPE ON TOE SCOUR IN FRONT OF A

VERTICAL SEAWALL

Qingping Zou 1, Zhong Peng 2 and Pengzhi Lin 3

Scour in front of coastal structures is a major threat to structural stability and safety of properties behind. In this
study, a Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes Solver (RANS) is combined with a Volume of Fluid (VOF) (RANS-VOF)
surface capturing scheme to investigate the wave interactions with a Seawall and its adjacent sea bed. The main
objective is to investigate the effects of wave breaking and beach slope on toe scour in front of a vertical wall.

Keywords: Vertical Seawall, beach lowing, toe scour, standing wave, breaking wave, RANS

INTRODUCTION
Scour in front of coastal structures is a vital threat to structural stability and safety of properties behind.
Wave breaking is believed to be a significant factor in sediment transport and beach profiles changes.
The experimental study by Fredsøe and Sumer (1997) indicates that the steady streaming generates a
scour hole in front of a breakwater while the plunging breaker generates a scour hole at the lee-side of
the breakwater. Tsai et al. (2009) studied the toe scour of seawalls on a beach slope of 1:5 under
regular waves in the lab. They concluded that the scour depth induced by a plunging breaker is larger
than that by a spilling breaker or a non-breaking wave.

In case of non-breaking waves, Sumer and Fredsoe, (2002) and Sumer (2007) found that the reflection
from the breakwater forms a standing wave which generates the steady streaming in front of breakwater,
consisting of bottom and top recirculating cells. The formation of bottom cell is related to the boundary
layer over the bed and the sediment motion on the bed responds to these recirculating cells.
Consequently a scour /deposition pattern in front of the breakwater emerges in the form of alternating
scour and deposition areas lying parallel to the structure. However, in case of breaking waves, Sumer
(2007) mentioned that the complex process of wave breaking generates a strong downward flow in the
form of a jet to erode the bed and mobilize the sediment at the toe of vertical wall, which presumably
leads to scour at the toe of a seawall.

Gislason et al. (2009) investigated the two-dimensional scour and deposition in front of vertical and
sloping Seawalls using a 3-D Navier-Stokes solver, coupled with a k-ω turbulence model and a
morphologic model. They reproduced the well known alternating scour/deposition pattern in front of
the breakwater (e.g., Sumer and Fredsoe, 2002). However, effect of wave breaking is not considered in
their work. In their Study, the free surface is tracked by integrating in time the kinematic boundary
conditions based on the free surface volume flux.

In this study, a Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes Solver (RANS) combined with a Volume of Fluid
(VOF) surface capturing scheme is used to simulate the hydrodynamics of wave interactions with a
seawall. This model is further coupled with a bed-load sediment transport equation and morphological
model in order to predict beach profile changes in front of the seawall. The main objective is to
investigate the effects of wave breaking and beach slope on toe scour in front of a vertical wall.
EXPERIMENTS
Medium scale physical model tests of scour in front of seawalls were performed in the wave flumes (45
m (L)×1.2 m (W)×1.7 m (H)) at HR Wallingford in the UK (HR Wallingford, 2006, Sutherland et al
2006)). Waves were generated using a piston-type wave maker with maximum stroke of ±0.6m and
maximum operating depth of 1.4 m. Test setup had a 19.2 m long 1:30 smooth concrete slope from the
flume floor up to an elevation of 0.64m. Test section was a 5.14 m long sand bed filled with Redhill
110 sand. Mean sand diameter, d50=0.111mm, kinematic viscosity ν=1×10-6 m2/s and sediment
density s=2650 kg/m3. More details about the experiment can be found in Sutherland et al. (2006). In

1
Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469, USA
qingping.zou@maine.edu
2
Harbor, Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Deltares, Delft, 2629HD, Netherlands
3
State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, Sichuan University, 610065, Chengdu, China
1
 2 COASTAL ENGINEERING 2012

this study, these experiments will be used to validate the model simulation of toe scour in front of a
vertical Seawall on a sloping beach.

NUMERICAL MODEL

Hydrodynamic model

The Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes-Volume of Fluid (RANS-VOF) model, developed by Lin and
Liu (1998), solves the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equation for the mean flow field and the non-
linear k–ε equations for the turbulent kinetic energy, k, and the turbulence dissipation rate, ε. The
Volume of Fluid method is employed to capture free surface. During the computation, a no-slip
boundary condition at the solid boundaries and a zero-stress condition at the free surface are employed.
Turbulent kinetic energy, k, and dissipation rate, ε, are assumed to be a function of distance from the
solid surface and have zero gradient at the free surface. An active wave generating-absorbing wave-
maker located at the inlet is applied to generate waves and simultaneously absorb the reflected waves
from the structures (Troch and De Rouck, 1999). More detailed information about the model can be
found in Lin & Liu (1998) and Peng and Zou (2011). Recently this model has been further developed
and used widely to investigate wave-structure interactions and subsequent coastal flood risk (Garcia et
al. 2004; Lara et al. 2006; Zou & Peng 2011; Zou et al 2012)

The cell size in the y-direction varies from 0.01 m in the near bed region to 0.02 m away from the bed.
The cell size in the x-direction is 0.05 m. Numerical model setup is illustrated in Figure 1. RANS-VOF
model has been extended to deal with complex bathymetry, such as a ripple bed in this study. In the
original code, the bathymetry is defined by a series of conic sections whose equations are provided by
the user. This treatment is too tedious for large and complicated bathymetry. In the updated code,
complicated bathymetry can be read directly from an input file.

Sediment transport model

Due to the complexity and uncertainty of sediment transport, empirical formulae based on experiments
have been implemented to describe this process in previous studies (e.g., Pedrozo-Acuña et al., 2006;
Bakhtyar et al., 2009). Madsen (1991) introduced a formula based on the work by Meyer-Peter and
Muller (1948), which accounts for slope corrections and the angle of repose.
q (t ) C u
= (θ − θ cr )3/ 2 b (1)
( s − 1) gd50 1 + tan β
3 ub
tan φ
where q(t) is instantaneous sediment transport rate; s=ρs/ρ is the specific density, where ρs is the grain
density and ρ is the water density; d50 is the mean grain diameter, g is the gravity; C is sediment
transport efficiency; β is the beach slope and Ф is the angle of repose; ub is the instantaneous free
2
stream velocity close to bed. θ = 0.5 fub is the shields parameter, f is the bottom friction factor.
( s − 1) gd50

This formula has been widely used in the swash zone of sandy beaches (e.g., Butt and Russell, 2000;
Larson et al., 2001) and therefore it will be employed in this study to obtain the sediment transport
rate.
A threshold shear stress for sediments on a sloping bed at angle β to the horizontal bed, is related to
the direction of horizontal component of near-bed flow, for flow in the up- and down- slope direction
respectively.
tan β
=θ β c θ co cos β (1 − )
tan φ
(2)
tan β
=θ β c θ co cos β (1 + ) (3)
tan φ
 COASTAL ENGINEERING 2012 3

where θβc is the critical value of θ for the initiation of sediment motion at the sloping bed and θco is the
critical shields parameter for the initiation of sediment motion on a horizontal bed. θco is a function of
the grain Reynolds number (Sumer and Freds¢e, 2002, p.10) and it is approximately 0.06 in this study.

The theoretical expression for the friction factor can be approximated by (Fredsoe and Deigaard, 1992)
 a − 14 a
 0.04( ) , > 50
 kN kN
f = 3
(4)
 0.4( a ) − 4 , a < 50

 kN kN
where kN is bed roughness length (around 1/12 of grain size), and a=U0*T/2π, bottom free stream
velocity, U0 is taken as the maximum value of the measured velocity at 5cm above the bed and T is
incident wave period.

Morphology model
The bed profile is updated by solving the sediment conservation equation based on the time-averaged
sediment transport rates from a bed-load sediment transport equation (1) (Fredsøe and Deigaard, 1992,
chapter 11):
∂q (t ) ∂z
=−(1 − n) (5)
∂x ∂t
where z is the bed level and n is the beach porosity, n=0.44 is used in this study. The sand-slide model
of Liang and Cheng, (2005) is modified and used to resolve the avalanching process and five-point
Gaussian average is applied to the newly updated bed levels to smooth out the small-scale bed features.

MODEL RESULTS

The model is validated against the toe scour experiment for a regular wave on a flat bottom in front of a
vertical wall, described in Gislason et al. (2009). The model prediction of bed profile are in a good
agreement with the measurements after 300 waves. Model is then setup in the same way as the toe
scour experiments of random waves over a sloping bed by Sutherland et al (2006) (cf. figure 1). The
vertical wall is located at x=28 m in figure 1. The model-data comparisons are used to study the toe
scour over a sandy beach with a 1:30 slope in front of a vertical wall, with particular attention to the
effects of wave breaking and water depth. Random waves are generated using the JONSWAP spectrum.
Table 1 shows the key parameters for 3 examples model results out of numerous test runs conducted.

1.4 Range of still water level

1.2
Surface elevation

1
z (m)

0.8

0.6 Mobile bed

0.4
Immobile bed
0.2

5 10 15 20 25
x (m)
Figure 1 Numerical model setup and computation domain
4 COASTAL ENGINEERING 2012

Table 1. Examples test runs for toe scour on a sloping beach

Case No. Hs Tp h0 htoe
1 0.2 3.24 0.95 0.1
2 0.2 1.87 1.0 0.2
3 0.2 1.87 1.25 0.4

Case 1: low water level

Random waves were generated from Jonswap spectrum with significant wave height Hs=0.2 m, peak
wave period Tp=3.24 s, deep water depth h0=0.95 m and water depth at the toe of the wall htoe=0.1 m.
Figure 2 indicates that the predicted wave height is in a good agreement with the observation. As shown
in figure 2, the wave height remains almost the same from x=0 to x=23 m and decreases dramatically
shoreward from x=23 m, indicating this location is the wave breaking point for most wave components .
As the wave approaches the wall further, the wave height increases again at a location closer to the
vertical wall (x=28 m). The reflected wave from the vertical wall leads to partial standing wave and
thus larger wave height in this area.

Figure 2 Model-data comparison of cross shore evolution of significant wave height.

The beach profile evolves from the initially smooth profile (black dotted line) to an undulating profile
(blue dashed line) in figure 3. There is a large scour area close to the vertical wall followed by a small
deposition area immediately seaward. Waves tend to break offshore so that wave energy is largely
dissipated before reaching the Seawall. Scour is mainly induced by the near bottom offshore current
generated by the breaking and the partial standing waves adjacent to the wall. The beach profile and
scour and deposition pattern agrees reasonably well with measurements. The calculated maximum scour
depth and deposition also compare well with the measurements.
 COASTAL ENGINEERING 2012 5

Figure 3 Comparison of model predicted scour and deposition with measurements for case 1 Hs=0.2m,
Tp=3.24s, htoe=0.1m.

Case 2: mid water level

Random waves were generated from Jonswap spectrum with significant wave height Hs=0.2 m, peak
wave period Tp=1.87 s, water depth at the toe of the wall htoe=0.2 m. As can be seen from Figure 4, the
predicted beach profile as well as the calculated maximum scour depth and deposition agrees well with
the measurement after 300 waves. The initial beach profile is taken from the measurements. Compared
with Case 1 results in Figure 3, Figure 4 shows that the horizontal extent of the toe scour decreases for
smaller incident wave period and slightly larger water depth in Case 2. The offshore boundary of scour
zone is at x=27.4 m for Tp=1.87 s in Case 2 and at x=27 m for Tp=3.24 s in Case 1. Both the model and
experiment indicate a significant deposition just seaward of the scour area for Case 2. These differences
between Case 2 and Case 1 is mainly due to the change in the relative water depth at the toe of the
vertical wall, i.e., the relative water depth, htoe/Ldeep, is 0.042 for Tp=1.87 s, Case 2 and 0.01 for Tp=3.24
s, Case 1. The intermediate water depth in this case allows bigger waves to arrive at the structure
without breaking. The bigger waves in turn generate larger scour and deposition at the structure.

Given this wave condition, similar to the laboratory observations by Sutherland (2006), our model
simulation shows that waves tend to break onto the structure and a partial standing wave is formed
inside the surf zone. Our model results also indicate that water plunging upon the face of the seawall to
the bed and produce strong vortex, streaming velocity and turbulence near the wall, resulting in the
deepest scour depths and depositions.

Case 3: high water level

Random waves were generated from Jonswap spectrum with significant wave height Hs=0.2 m, peak
wave period Tp=1.87 s, water depth at the toe of the wall htoe=0.4 m. In contrast with Case 1 and 2
shown in figures 3 and 4, the bed profile change is small and undulated with alternating scour and
deposition pattern . This is mainly due to the larger water depth at the toe of the vertical wall in this test
case. There is little wave breaking and the near bottom velocity is not large enough to move significant
amount of sediment within the mobile bed area (Figure 1), and therefore there is small scour depth and
deposition.

CONCLUSIONS

Present model can reproduce the observed scour and deposition processes in front of a seawall on a flat
bottom and a sloping beach. In the presence of beach slope, the strength and spatial distribution of
streaming velocity and bottom orbital velocity along the seabed are altered significantly by the wave
randomness, wave breaking type and location, as well as the breaking induced wave reflection. The
former largely determines the magnitude and direction of sediment transport. In particular, the breaking
location and type are key factors in scour formation. At low water depth, wave breaks offshore, a
partial standing wave and relatively small toe scour occurs at the wall. At intermediate water depth, the
6 COASTAL ENGINEERING 2012

deepest scour depth is found in case of plunging breaker on the wall. At large water depth, very little
breaking happens and near bottom velocity is not large enough to move significant amount of sediment
within the mobile bed area so that scour and deposition are minimum. Model result also indicates that
the extent of scour area increases with the wave period.

Figure 4 Calculated Beach profile at t/T=50 and measured beach profile for Hs=0.2m, Tp=1.84s,
htoe=0.2m

Figure 5 Calculated Beach profile at t/T=50 and measured beach profile for Hs=0.2m, Tp=1.84s,
htoe=0.4m

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are grateful to Drs C. Obhrai and J. Sutherland at HR Wallingford, who generously provided the
laboratory measurements for the present work, along with the support of the Natural Environmental
Research Council (Grant No. NE/E002129/1) and the start-up fund by University of Maine. This work
benefits from discussions with Drs. A. Pedrozo-Acuna, D. Jones and Prof. D.E. Reeve. The third author
acknowledges the supported by NSFC (51061130547).
 COASTAL ENGINEERING 2012 7

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