General longshore transport model

In the present paper a general longshore transport (LT) model is proposed after a re-calibration of the model originally introduced by Lamberti and Tomasicchio (1997) based on a modified stability number, Ns⁎⁎, for stone mobility at reshaping or berm breakwaters. Ns⁎⁎ resembles the traditional stability number (Ahrens, 1987; van der Meer, 1988) taking into account the effects of a non-Rayleighian wave height distribution at shallow water (Klopman and Stive, 1989), wave steepness, wave obliquity, and nominal diameter of the units. Nine high-quality data sets from field and laboratory experiments have been considered to extend the validity of the original model for a wider mobility range of the units: from stones to sands. The predictive capability of the proposed model has been verified against the most popular formulae in literature for the LT estimation of not cohesive units at a coastal body. The comparison showed that the model gives a better agreement with the physical data with respect to the other investigated formulae.The proposed transport model presents a main advantage with respect to other formulae: it can represent an engineering tool suitable for a large range of conditions, from sandy beaches till reshaping breakwaters.

► General model allowing to determine the LT rate at any given coastal mound ► Valid for berm breakwaters, rock and cobbles beaches, gravel and sandy beaches ► Calibration and verification with high quality field and laboratory data ► Predictive accuracy verified against some of the existing formulae in literature ► A robust and easy to use single tool to design a coastal structure