The change characteristics of the calculated wind wave fields near lateral boundaries with SWAN model

Abstract

Since the wind wave model Simulating Waves Nearshore (SWAN) cannot effectively simulate the wave fields near the lateral boundaries, the change characteristics and the distortion ranges of calculated wave factors including wave heights, periods, directions, and lengths near the lateral boundaries of calculation domain are carefully studied in the case of different water depths and wind speeds respectively. The calculation results show that the effects of the variety of water depth and wind speed on the modeled different wave factors near the lateral boundaries are different. In the case of a certain wind speed, the greater the water depth is, the greater the distortion range is. In the case of a certain water depth, the distortion ranges defined by the relative errors of wave heights, periods, and lengths are different from those defined by the absolute errors of the corresponding wave factors. Moreover, the distortion ranges defined by the relative errors decrease with the increase of wind speed; whereas the distortion ranges defined by the absolute errors change a little with the variety of wind speed. The distortion range of wave direction decreases with the increase of wind speed. The calculated wave factors near the lateral boundaries with the SWAN model in the actual physical areas, such as Lake Taihu and Lake Dianshan considered in this study, are indeed distorted if the calculation domains are not enlarged on the basis of actual physical areas. Therefore, when SWAN is employed to calculate the wind wave fields near the shorelines of sea or inland lakes, the appropriate approaches must be adopted to reduce the calculation errors.