J. van der Werf

Observations of velocities, sand concentrations, and fluxes under velocity‐asymmetric oscillatory flows

[1] U‐tube measurements of instantaneous velocities, concentrations, and fluxes for a well‐sorted, medium‐sized sand in oscillatory sheet flow are analyzed. The experiments involved two velocity‐asymmetric flows, the same two flows with an opposing current of 0.4 m/s, and a mixed skewed‐asymmetric flow, all with a velocity amplitude of 1.2 m/s and flow period of 7 s. We find that the net positive transport rate beneath velocity‐ asymmetric oscillatory flow results from large, but opposing sand fluxes during the positive and negative flow phase. With an increase in velocity asymmetry and, in particular, velocity skewness, the difference in the magnitude of the fluxes in the two half cycles increases, leading to larger net transport rates. This trend is consistent with the observed increase in skewness of the oscillatory bed shear stress. Phase‐lag effects, whereby sand stirred during the negative flow phase has not settled by the time of the negative‐to‐positive flow reversal and is subsequently transported during the positive flow phase, are notable but of minor importance to the net transport rate compared to earlier experiments with finer sands. In the vertical, the oscillatory flux is positive above the no‐ flow bed. Within the sheet flow pick‐up layer, the oscillatory flux is negative and similar in magnitude to the positive flux induced by the residual flow. The 0.4 m/s opposing current causes more sand to be picked up during the negative than during the positive flow phase. Above the no‐flow bed the resulting negative oscillatory flux is comparable in magnitude to the current‐related flux.

Detailed measurements of velocities and suspended sand concentrations over full-scale ripples in regular oscillatory flow

The knowledge and modeling of wave-induced sand transport over rippled beds still has significant shortcomings, which is partly related to a lack of measurements of the detailed processes from controlled laboratory experiments. We have carried out new measurements of the detailed time-dependent velocity and suspended sand concentration field around vortex ripples for regular oscillatory flow conditions. The fact that the ripples were mobile and the flow conditions were full-scale makes these measurements unique. We made velocity measurements for 14 different flows and concentration measurements for three of these flows. The velocity and concentration field above ripples are dominated by the generation and ejection of vortices on the ripple flanks around the time of flow reversal. Vortex formation results in near-ripple flow reversals ahead of free-stream reversals and velocity maxima near the ripple crest that are much higher than the free-stream maxima. Asymmetry in the free stream produces steady circulation cells with dominant offshore mean flow up the ripple lee slope, balanced by weaker onshore streaming up the ripple stoss slope as well as higher up in the flow. The time- and bed-averaged horizontal velocity profile comprises an offshore streaming near the bed and an onshore drift higher up in the flow. The vortices are responsible for three main concentration peaks: one just after on-offshore flow reversal associated with the passage of a sand-laden vortex followed by two smaller peaks due to advected suspension clouds generated by vortex action at the neighboring onshore ripples. The sand flux field measured for one typical asymmetric flow condition is dominated by an offshore flux associated with the suspended sand cloud generated by vortex shedding from the ripples lee slope around the time of on-offshore flow reversal. The net (time-averaged) current-related and wave-related horizontal sand fluxes are generally offshore directed and mostly contained within 1.5 ripple heights above the ripple crest. The wave-related suspended transport component is larger, but the contribution of the current-related suspended sand transport cannot be neglected. In addition to the measured offshore net transport of suspended sand, there is an onshore-directed transport very close to the ripple surface. The total net transport is in the offshore direction for this specific asymmetric flow condition.

Sand motion induced by oscillatory flows: sheet flow and vortex ripples

A large series of field-scale experiments on turbulent sand-laden flows, conducted in preceding years in the LOWT and AOFT large oscillating water tunnels are reviewed and reanalysed. Using the combined experimental data sets, new insights are obtained on the detailed sand transport processes occurring in sheet-flow and ripple regime conditions. For sheet flow (i) new equations are presented relating maximum erosion depth and sheet-flow layer thickness to the maximum Shields parameter; (ii) detailed analysis of sediment flux data shows the dominance of the current-related flux in the sheet-flow layer and the different characters of the current-related flux for fine and medium sands; (iii) a RANS-diffusion type model is shown to reproduce important trends in net transport rate related to grain size, velocity and wave period and to predict the magnitude of net transport rate to within a factor 2 of measured values. For the ripple regime it is shown that (i) asymmetric waves generate negative (‘offshore’) streaming and the current-related suspended sediment flux associated with this streaming appears to be of the same order of magnitude as the wave-related suspended sediment flux; (ii) time-averaged near-bed transport and time-averaged suspended transport appear to be of about equal magnitude but of opposite sign, and are concentrated on the ‘onshore’ flank of the ripple for asymmetric wave conditions; (iii) near-bed transport along the onshore flank is generated by sand transported over the ripple crest during the ‘onshore’ half-cycle. Net sand transport under asymmetric waves can be ‘onshore’ directed or ‘offshore’ directed, depending on the degree of unsteadiness in the sand flux behaviour during the wave cycle. Dimensionless phase-lag parameters are presented, for sheet flow and ripples, which can discriminate between predominantly quasi-steady behaviour (resulting in ‘onshore’ transport) and predominantly unsteady behaviour (resulting in ‘offshore transport’).