Analysis of nonlinear surf zone wave properties as estimated from Boussinesq modelling : Random waves and complex bathymetries

Abstract

he present work aims at investigating the ability of Boussinesq-type equations and breaking-wave parameterizations to reproduce nonlinear properties of surf zone waves. We compare results produced by two different breaking models : those proposed by Kennedy et al. (2000) and by Cienfuegos et al. (2005). Both breaking strategies are implemented in a fully nonlinear and weakly dispersive Boussinesq code (Cienfuegos et al., 2006a,b). In the first part we calibrate model parameters on the spilling regular wave experiment conducted by Ting and Kirby (1994). In the 2nd part, we apply the breaking Boussinesq models on a new laboratory experiment on random waves propagating over uneven bathymetries.