Modelling wave group-scale hydrodynamics on orthogonal unstructured meshes

Journal article (2023)

Authors

J.A.H. Reyns Coastal Engineering - CEG , IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, Deltares
Robert McCall Deltares
Roshanka Ranasinghe IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, University of Twente, Deltares
Ap R. van Dongeren IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, Deltares
D. Roelvink Deltares, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, Coastal Engineering - CEG
Research Group
Coastal Engineering (CEG) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2023 J.A.H. Reyns, Robert McCall, Roshanka Ranasinghe, Ap van Dongeren, D. Roelvink
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2023.105655
More Info
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Published Date

2023

Language

English

Faculty

Civil Engineering & Geosciences

Department

Hydraulic Engineering

Research Group

Coastal Engineering

Abstract

An unstructured hydrodynamic model is presented that is able to simulate 2D nearshore hydrodynamics on the wave group scale. A non-stationary wave driver with directional spreading, with physics similar to XBeach (Roelvink et al., 2009) is linked to an improved and extended version of the existing unstructured flow solver Delft3D–FM (Kernkamp et al., 2011; Martyr-Koller et al., 2017). The model equations are discretised on meshes consisting of triangular and rectangular elements. The model allows for coverage of the model domain with locally optimised resolution to accurately resolve the dominant processes, yet with a smaller total number of grid cells. The model also allows a larger explicit time step, compared to structured models with similar functionality. The model reliably reproduces measured datasets of water levels, sea/swell and low frequency wave heights in laboratory and field conditions, and is as such widely deployable in a variety of simple and complex coastal settings to study nearshore hydrodynamics.