Bottom Shear Stress Under Wave-Current Interaction*

The present work adopts the COHERENS-SWAN model developed by the first author through coupling three-dimensional hydrodynamic model (COHERENS) and third-generation wave model (SWAN). Inside the COHERENS-SWAN, the SWAN is regarded as a subroutine and the time- and space-varying current velocity and surface elevation are obtained from the COHERENS. Wave-enhanced bottom shear stress, wave induced surface mixing length and wave dependent surface drag coefficient have been introduced into the COHERENS. Secondly, as wave-enhanced bottom shear stress (“bottom shear stress” described as BSS sometimes in this article) is concerned, a modified bottom shear stress Grant and Madsen model which introduces random wave field is given and introduced to COHERENS-SWAN. COHERENS-SWAN is also adopted to simulate three-dimensional flow in the Yellow River Delta with wave-current co-existing. Four numerical experiments were given to study the effects of wave-current interaction on enhancing bottom shear stress. The simulated current velocities, wave height and wave period match well with field measurement data. The simulated significant wave height and wave period for the case with considering the effects of current can give better agreement with measurement data than the case without involving the effects of current. The introduction of random wave generates lower the bottom shear stress than the case without introducing it. There are obvious differences between bottom shear stress of two way interaction and one way interaction. Velocity field obtained by the COHERENS-SWAN is reasonable according to previous studies and measurements.