Runup of solitary waves on a straight and a composite beach

Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and wave gauges have been used to investigate the runup of solitary waves at two different beaches. The first beach is straight with an inclination of 10 degrees, whereas the second is a composite beach with a change in the 10 degrees inclination to 4 degrees at a vertex point above the equilibrium water level. Comparison with numerical simulations using a Navier-Stokes solver with zero viscosity has been performed for the composite beach. Four different amplitudes of incoming solitary waves are investigated. Measurements of the runup show that the composite beach gives a lower runup compared to the straight beach. Furthermore, the composite beach experiences a longer duration of the rundown compared to the straight beach. This is at least partially assumed to be a result of scaling effects, since the fluid above the vertex creates a relatively thinner runup tongue compared to the straight beach scenario. The appearance of a stagnation point at the beach boundary is clearly visible in both the PIV results and the numerical simulation. This stagnation point is originating at the lowermost part of the beach, and is moving upwards with time. It is found that the stagnation point moves faster upwards for the straight beach than for the composite beach. Further, the stagnation point is moving even faster in the numerical simulation, suggesting that the velocity with which the stagnation point moves is influenced by viscous scaling effects. Finally, the numerical simulation seems to capture the physics of the flow well, despite differences in the phase compared to the PIV results. This applies to both the flow field and the surface elevations. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.