Sediment transport and beach profile evolution induced by bi- chromatic wave groups with different group periods. José M. Alsina* Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Imperial College London, SW7 2AZ London, UK.
[email protected] Enrique M. Padilla Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Imperial College London, SW7 2AZ London, UK.
[email protected] Iván Cáceres Laboratori d'Enginyeria Marítima, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 08034 Barcelona, Spain.
[email protected] *Corresponding author Abstract In this paper, large-scale experimental data are presented showing the beach profile morphological evolution induced by four different bi-chromatic wave conditions characterized by very similar energy content between them but varying the modulation period. Important differences were observed in the resultant beach profiles as a function of the wave group periods. Larger variability in the profile evolution is generally observed for larger wave group periods and, more importantly, as the wave group period increases the distance between the generated breaker bar and the shoreline increases. The measured primary wave height to depth ratio () increases with the wave group period, which is consistent with the observed larger wave height at the breaking location. The primary wave 1 breaking location is also observed at increasing distances with respect to the initial shoreline as the wave group period increases. The variation in with wave group period is related to the selective energy dissipation of the higher primary frequency component (f1) during the wave group shoaling. Broad bandwith conditions (reduced wave group period) lead to larger dissipation of wave heights at the f1 component relative to f2 resulting in a reduction in the wave modulation and primary wave height at the breaking location.