Laboratory Simulations of Directionally Spread Shoaling Waves

Abstract

Field observations of a shoaling, nonbreaking, directionally spread wave field are simulated in a laboratory basin to determine whether laboratory artifacts cause significant distortions of the shoaling process. The laboratory wave field is measured with scaled arrays of surface‐elevation sensors similar to the arrays used for the field observations. However, differences in the laboratory and field beach slopes (0.033 and 0.025, respectively) do not allow precise replication of the field conditions in the laboratory. Therefore, a nonlinear wave propagation model with no adjustable parameters (previously successfully compared to a wide range of field data) is used to show that differences between the laboratory and field data sets are caused primarily by the different beach slopes. The observations demonstrate, in agreement with the model, that it is possible to compensate partially for differences in beach slope by altering the initial conditions. With such compensation, the evolution of surface‐elevation power spectra, bispectra, and skewness and asymmetry are remarkably similar in the laboratory and field. Frequency‐directional spectra measured just outside the surf zone also show similar nonlinear effects in both field and laboratory data. Based on this case study, the laboratory directional wave basin appears to be useful for investigating the linear and nonlinear evolution of random, two‐dimensional waves on beaches.