Numerical Experiments Analysis of Wave-Induced Vertical Mixing’s Effects on Sea Surface Wind-Induced Momentum Transfer

A hydrodynamic sediment coupled model COHERENS-SED, which has been developed by the present authors through introducing wave-enhanced bottom stress, wave dependent surface drag coefficient, wave-induced surface mixing, SWAN, damping function of sediment on turbulence and sediment model to COHERENS, is modified to account for wave-induced vertical mixing. One equation k–ε turbulence model is taken into account in calculating vertical viscosity coefficient. COHERENS-SED consists of sediment model SED, current model COHERENS and wave generation model SWAN. The model can also calculate one-dimensional, two-dimensional and three-dimensional current separately. One-dimensional model and three-dimensional model are adoptted to study the wave-induced vertical mixing’s effects. The horizontal current velocity profiles given by the model, with same input conditions as what to get analytical results, are in nice agreement with analytical velocity profiles. Therefore the model can be reliable to identify wave-induced vertical mixing’s effects on horizontal velocity profiles and momentum transferring. Two group numerical experiments are built based on 130m water depth and 20m water depth for the one-dimensional model. Results show that higher wave height can generate larger vertical eddy viscosity and lower horizontal velocity generally. In order to find out such effects on fresh water flume momentum transfer towards down in vertical section of estuary, Yellow River delta is chosen to study the effects of wave-induced vertical diffusion on sediment vertical mixing and the Yellow River estuary vertical cross-section is chosen to study fresh water disperse range in vertical section. The results of fresh water shows that wave-induced vertical mixing increases the momentum of fresh water transferring ability towards down to seabed. So fresh water flume length is compressed obviously.