Coastal Engineering 59 (2011) 4656

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Coastal Engineering
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / c o a s t a l e n g

Validation of a new generation system for bottom boundary layer beneath

solitary wave
Hitoshi Tanaka a,, Bambang Winarta a, Suntoyo b, Hiroto Yamaji a
a
b

Department of Civil Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-06 Aoba, Sendai 980-8579, Japan
Department of Ocean Engineering, Faculty of Marine Technology, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS), Surabaya 60111, Indonesia

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 7 January 2011
Received in revised form 8 July 2011
Accepted 13 July 2011
Available online 12 August 2011
Keywords:
Solitary wave
Boundary layer
Generation system
Transition
Turbulent ow

a b s t r a c t
Understanding of sea bottom boundary layer characteristics, especially bottom shear stress acting on the sea
bed, is an important step needed in sediment transport modeling for practical application purposes. In the
present study, a new generation system for bottom boundary layer under solitary wave is proposed.
Applicability of this system is examined by comparing measured and numerical solution velocities. Moreover,
transitional behavior from laminar to turbulence was investigated. It is concluded that the critical Reynolds
number in the experiments shows good agreement with DNS result of Vittori and Blondeaux (2008) and
laboratory data of Sumer et al. (2010), indicating validity of the generation system. Since the present
generation system enables continuous measurement to obtain ensemble averaged quantities, it can be
effectively utilized for future experimental studies on solitary wave boundary layers, including sediment
transport experiments with movable bed.
2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Bottom boundary layer under wave motion has crucial importance
in the analyses and modeling of nearshore sediment transport.
Solitary wave with narrow crests without trough has been often
used as an approximation of surface prole of ocean water waves
propagating in shoaling water area. Moreover, a tsunami wave
approaching shallow water can also be frequently replaced with
solitary wave to a rst approximation. Both laboratory and numerical
experiments of bottom boundary layer under periodical non-linear
waves have been done by many researchers (e.g. Lee and Cheungk,
1999; Lin and Zhang, 2008; Suntoyo et al., 2008; Suntoyo and Tanaka,
2009a). However, only several researchers have conducted experimental and theoretical studies to describe the wave boundary layer
under solitary wave motion.
First theoretical study on the viscous damping under solitary wave
was done by Keulegan (1948). Later, Tanaka et al. (1998) converted
Keulegan's solution into a form with temporal variation to investigate
an asymptotic behavior of cnoidal wave boundary layers at high Ursel
numbers. Recently, Liu et al. (2006, 2007) examined the boundary
layer characteristics for laminar ow under solitary wave using Liu
and Orla's solution (2004) and compared with laboratory experiments measured by a particle image velocimetry (PIV). In recent

study, Suntoyo and Tanaka (2009b) presented an investigation result

of boundary layer ows under solitary wave by the baseline (BSL) k-
turbulent model, while Vittori and Blondeaux (2008, 2011) used
direct numerical simulations (DNSs). More recently, Sumer et al.
(2010) carried out an experimental investigation of turbulent solitary
boundary layers. They showed that Reynolds number up to 5 10 5 is
laminar ow, which is slightly different from the results shown by
Suntoyo and Tanaka (2009b).
Among these studies, facilities used in the previous experiments
can be classied into two groups: a wave ume with free surface
(e.g., Ippen and Kulin, 1957; Liu et al., 2006, 2007; Naheer, 1977,
1978) and an oscillating water tunnel (Sumer et al., 2010).
Fig. 1 summarizes the range of experimental and numerical studies
on solitary wave boundary layer such as Naheer (1977, 1978), Liu et
al. (2006, 2007), Vittori and Blondeaux (2008) and Sumer et al.
(2010). In addition, to make more comprehensive understanding ow
condition in a wave ume, experiments of Lee et al. (1982) and
Synolakis (1987) are also plotted based on the wave parameters in a
constant water depth region, although their studies' aim was wave
run-up on a plane slope. In Fig. 1(a), the dimensionless parameters are
dened by,

= H=h
Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +81 22 795 7451.
E-mail addresses: tanaka@tsunami2.civil.tohoku.ac.jp (H. Tanaka),
bwinarta@yahoo.co.id (B. Winarta), suntoyo@oe.its.ac.id (Suntoyo),
yamaji@kasen.civil.tohoku.ac.jp (H. Yamaji).
0378-3839/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.coastaleng.2011.07.003

 =

q
p
2h = gh = h

H. Tanaka et al. / Coastal Engineering 59 (2011) 4656

(a)

47

Based on an experimental study in a U-shaped tunnel, Sumer et al.

(2010) concluded that the critical Reynolds number for transition to
turbulence is given by Racr = 5 10 5, which is also shown in Fig. 1
considering the relationship given by Eq. (4). It is readily seen in Fig. 1
that experimental condition in a wave ume falls in the region
sufciently below Racr. In contrast to the wave ume data, U-shaped
oscillating water tunnel and DNS simulation enable higher Reynolds
number conditions even above Racr. However, it will be practically
difcult in a U-shaped oscillating tunnel to generate boundary layer
ow exactly corresponds to solitary wave motion because of
restorative force in a tunnel, which may induce oscillating motion
with ow reversal. Indeed in Sumer et al.'s (2010) analysis of the
experimental result, the portion of the data with negative velocities at
the trailing of the uid motion was disregarded.
In an experiment using a wave ume or U-shaped tunnel, another
difculty arises in great number of realizations required to obtain
reliable ensemble averaged quantities. It is reported that under
oscillatory motion, 50 samples are necessary to achieve convergence
of turbulent statistics such as turbulence intensity and mean velocity
(Jensen et al., 1989; Sleath, 1987). In case of periodical waves,
continuous measurement can be done for required number of waves
to obtain sufcient samples. In case of solitary wave boundary layer,
however, such a continuous measurement cannot be done because of
inherent requirement of single wave generation.
In the present study, a conduit water tunnel with a downstream
gate has been newly proposed to investigate boundary layer
characteristics under solitary wave over smooth bed. The generation
system presented in this study facilitates measurements of statistical
properties obtained by phase ensemble averaging.

(b)

2. Generation method of solitary wave boundary layer

Fig. 1. Range of experimental and numerical studies on solitary wave boundary layer
(a) * relationship, (b) Rah / l relationship.

in which H: the wave height, h: the water depth in case of wave ume
or half of the closed conduit tunnel height in case of oscillating tunnel,
: the kinematic viscosity of the uid and g: the gravitational
acceleration. Meanwhile, in Fig. 1(b), Ra is the Reynolds number dened by Sumer et al. (2010) as,
Ra

am Uc

in which Uc is the maximum velocity under wave crest, and am the half
of the stroke of the water particle displacement, being similar to one
used for sinusoidal wave boundary layers (e.g., Jensen et al., 1989).
Furthermore, 1 is the conventional Stokes layer thickness dened by
Sumer et al. (2010). It is noted that conventional Reynolds number Ra
is expressed in terms of and * as shown by Vittori and Blondeaux
(2011).
3=2

4
Ra p 2
3

A general sketch of the experimental set-up used in this study is

given in Fig. 2(a). The experimental set-up consists of an overow
head tank, a conduit water tunnel, a downstream gate and a ow
velocity measurement device. The conduit has length of 400 cm,
width of 15 cm and height of 10 cm. The overow head tank keeps a
constant pressure head and then water ows into measurement
section intermittently along the conduit in response to opening and
closing of the gate at the downstream end. Fig. 2(b) shows the
mechanism of a rotating disk which generates intermittent motion
simulating ow induced by solitary wave. On the plate connected
with the movable gate, a bearing is placed which moves up and down
along the perimeter of a rotating disk.
The hydraulic system in downstream part is described in Fig. 3, and
the corresponding velocity in the conduit is given by,
U t = Uc

zg t
zg max

where U(t) is the horizontal velocity in the closed conduit far from the
downstream gate, zg(t) is the height of opening of the gate as
illustrated in Fig. 3. Fig. 4 explains the operational system of a rotating
disk in the experimental generation system. At t = /2, the
downstream gate will be starting to open or beginning of periodical
motion, in which is the angular frequency of the rotating disk given
by 2/T (T: the period of rotation). Then at t = 0, the downstream
gate will fully open (zg(t) = zg max), it means that the peak of
periodical velocity arrives (U(t) = Uc). Subsequently, the downstream
gate will close gradually up to t = /2 and it is the end of periodical
motion.
It should be noted here that the ow motion generated by the
present mechanism is not purely solitary, but periodical consists of
solitary-wave-like positive peaks and tranquil period in between two
peaks. Because of this characteristic, the present generation system
facilitates measurements of statistical properties obtained by phase

48

H. Tanaka et al. / Coastal Engineering 59 (2011) 4656

1.0

(a) Closed conduit

Overflows
head tank

0.5

0.0

Downstream gate

130

U/Uc

10

Section A'-A'

/2

Measurement
position

/2

15

Downstream gate
Downstream gate

A'
.

Downstream gate

3 52

3 52

A'
400

35

,18

2,1

z g (t) = 0

unit : cm

Flow

Flow
z g (t) = z g

(b) Movement of downstream gate

,18

z g (t) = z g max

Fig. 4. Operational system of rotating disk in the experimental generation system.

Bearing
Plate

In the present experiment, we used two disks for generating

boundary layer ow in the water tunnel.
2.1. Generation system using Disk 1

Rotating disc

As shown in Fig. 5, Disk 1 board consists of semicircle and half

ellipse. The elevation of the gate is adjusted to generate such a
movement that the gate is completely closed during attachment of the
bearing to semicircle portion, whereas it gradually opens and
subsequently closes when it attaches to half ellipse of the disk.
Using a fundamental formula for trigonometric functions, the
height zg(t) shown in Fig. 5 is derived.

Downstream gate

zg t =

q
2
b2 cos t +a2 sin2 t a for=2< t<=2

zg t = 0

6a

for< t<=2;=2< t< 6b

Fig. 2. Sketch of experimental set-up, (a) Closed conduit, (b) Movement of downstream
gate.

ensemble averaging, whereas the previous generation methods such

as wave ume and oscillating tunnel require a great number of
realizations to obtain reliable ensemble averaged quantities, as
described above.

where a is the radius of the half circle, which is equal to the length of
semiminor axis of the ellipse and b is the semimajor axis of the ellipse
as shown in Fig. 5. Further, the denition of the phase angle based on
the direction of the disk is denoted in the gure.

Downstream gate

at t = 0

U (t)

z g max
z g (t )

Fig. 3. Gate movement at downstream end.

Fig. 5. Rotating disk consists of semicircle and half ellipse (Disk 1).

H. Tanaka et al. / Coastal Engineering 59 (2011) 4656

49

Fig. 6. Time-variation of free stream velocity generated by Disk 1.

Substituting Eqs. (6a) and (6b) into Eq. (5) and after simple
mathematical manipulation, the time-variation of horizontal velocity
in a closed conduit can be easily obtained as follows.

U t
=
Uc

q
b2 cos2 t + sin2 t 1
b 1

U t
=0
Uc

for=2< t<=2

for<t <=2; =2<t <

7a

7b

where b* = b/a .
Time-variation of horizontal velocity induced by the present
generation method as in Eqs. (7a) and (7b) is illustrated in Fig. 6 for
various values of b* from 1.1 to 4.0. The dependence of the timevariation on b* is slightly seen and higher b* value creates ow motion
with higher acceleration at t = /2.

By combining Eq. (5) with Eq. (8), the following equation can be
obtained.
zg t
U t
2
=
= sech t
zg max
Uc

11

where is the parameter to control the length of tranquil period as

will be discussed later. Similar to Disk 1 described above, the disk is
designed in such a way that the downstream gate is closed during the
half period of the oscillation. Therefore, the shape of the disk is
expressed by the following mathematical form.
2

zd t =a +zg max sech t

for=2< t<=2

12a

zd t =a

for< t<=2; =2< t<

12b

2.2. Generation system using Disk 2

Disk 2 has been designed by reecting the exact theory of the free
stream velocity under solitary wave motion given by,
2

U = Uc sech t

where
9

=a1 c
s
3H
a1 =
4h3

10

and c is the wave celerity.

where zd(t) is distance from the center of the disk to the edge at t.
The corresponding shape of the disk is illustrated in Fig. 7. The convex
shape circumscribing the circle reects the mathematical function
given by the theory, Eq. (8).
According to Eq. (8), it takes innite time for the velocity to reach
U = 0. For practical purposes, however, the time required for
substantial decay of the velocity can be dened such that U = U
(t = /2)/UC = 0.01, 0.001 etc. (e.g., Kobayashi and Karjadi, 1994).
From Eq. (8), the relationship between U and is obtained as,

p
2

1
U :
sech

13

Calculated result from Eq. (13) is summarized in Table 1. Fig. 8

illustrates time variation of the free stream velocity induced by a disk
designed based on Eqs. (12a) and (12b). With the increase of , the
velocity is more sharp-crested with longer tranquil period between two
peaks. It should be noted in Fig. 8 that too small causes discontinuity of
the velocity because of insufcient decay of the velocity.

Table 1
Relationship between U = U(t = /2)/UC and .

Fig. 7. Rotating disk designed based on Eq. (12) (Disk 2).

0.05
0.01
0.005
0.001
0.0005
0.0001

1.386
1.905
2.126
2.630
2.861
3.373

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H. Tanaka et al. / Coastal Engineering 59 (2011) 4656

Fig. 8. Time variation of free stream velocity by Disk 2.

Table 2
Experimental conditions.
Type
of
disk
Case
Case
Case
Case
Case

1-1
2-1
2-2
2-3
4-4

Disk
Disk
Disk
Disk
Disk

T (s)

1
2
2
2
2

16.48
16.78
16.90
15.36
16.99

(cm2/s)

0.0100
0.0100
0.0116
0.0116
0.0114

(s-1)

Uc
(cm/s)

27.0
42.6
78.7
78.5
81.3

14

3. Experimental condition and data analysis

In a water tunnel using Disk 1, one case of experiment has been
carried out, whereas using Disk 2, four cases of laboratory
experiments have been done for various maximum velocities
under single and continuous (or periodical) oscillatory motion
conditions (Table 2). Laboratory experiments for both single and
periodical oscillatory motion measurements were carried out for
Case 22, Case 23 and Case 24, whereas experiment for Case 21
has been done only under periodical oscillatory motion condition.
The single oscillatory motion measurement has purposes to dismiss
the inuence of preceding wave motion, and also to evaluate the
sufciency of tranquil period between two peaks of periodical
motion. The value of in each case was determined by tting
Eq. (8) to the measured free stream velocity, instead of applying the
analytical relationship Eq. (14). The reason of inaccurate estimation
of using Eq. (14) is probably due to nite diameter of a bearing
shown in Fig. 2(b), whereas in the theoretical manipulation to
derive Eqs. (12a), (12b), (13) and (14), its diameter is assumed to
be innitely small.
In Table 2, the solitary wave Reynolds number (Re) is dened by
the following equation based on Uc and dened in Eq. (9).
2

Re

Uc
:

15

The quantity dened in Eq. (9) is correlated with total

displacement of water particle d.

d= Uc sech t =

2Uc
:

Experimental condition
S:single

From Eqs. (8) and (11), the relationship between and can be
analytically obtained.
=:

Re

16

Fitting

Theory (Eq. (14))

0.500
0.790
0.950
0.880
0.810

0.984
0.977
1.075
0.972

P:periodical
1.46 105
2.25 105
5.64 105
6.06 105
7.34 105

P
P
S, P
S, P
S, P

Considering the relationship given by Eq. (16) and d = 2am, it is

readily concluded that Re (Eq. (15)) totally coincides with Ra (Eq. (3)).
The velocity was measured at 17 points in the vertical direction by
means of LDV installed with distance 1.3 m from the downstream gate.
The measured ow velocity record was collected by means of an A/D
converter at 10 ms intervals, and the mean velocity and turbulence
intensity were obtained by averaging over 50 wave cycles.
4. Validation of generation system
4.1. Experimental result using Disk 1
The free stream velocity obtained in the experiment with b* = 1.6
is shown in Fig. 9 along with Eqs. (7a) and (7b) and the theory for a
small amplitude solitary wave given by Eq. (8). It is seen that the
theoretical result of Eqs. (7a) and (7b) with b* = 1.6 shows good
agreement with experimental data. However, as compared with
solitary wave theory Eq. (8), the experimental data shows distinct
slight discrepancy especially during starting of acceleration phase and
the ending of deceleration phase.
4.2. Experimental result using Disk 2
4.2.1. Free stream velocity
The free stream velocity obtained using Disk 2 is compared with
Eq. (8) for all cases as shown in Fig. 10. From those gures, it is
concluded that good agreement can be achieved, although there is a
slight difference as compared with the analytical solution at lowest
Reynolds number (Case 21). By comparing with the previous
experiment based on Disk 1, the present generation system gives better
result for the free stream velocity especially at higher Reynolds number.
Furthermore, it should be here emphasized that the negative velocity at
the trailing of uid motion inherent in a U-shape oscillating tunnel as
reported by Sumer et al. (2010) can be denitely avoided.
4.2.2. Comparison between single and periodical oscillatory motion
measurements
As mentioned before, the present laboratory experiments have
been performed for both generation methods under single and

H. Tanaka et al. / Coastal Engineering 59 (2011) 4656

51

U (cm/s)

50
40

Experiment
Eq. (8)
Eqs. (7a) and (7b)

30
20
10
0
0

10

15

20

25

30

t (s)
Fig. 9. Measured free stream velocity generated by Disk 1 (Case 11).

periodical oscillatory motion. One of the reasons is to evaluate the

sufciency of tranquil period between two peaks of solitary wave
like motion. Fig. 11 illustrates the comparison between two kinds
of measurement method for three cases. In periodically measured
data, 19th and 20th samples are depicted out of continuous 50
wave cycles. In conclusion, single and periodical oscillatory motion

measurements give a good agreement, indicating validity of the

periodical generation system. Thus, from a view point of efcient
laboratory experiment, the present generation system with
periodical generation is useful for various kinds of experiment
relevant to solitary wave boundary layer which requires ensemble
averaged quantities.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Fig. 10. Measured free stream velocity using Disk 2.

52

H. Tanaka et al. / Coastal Engineering 59 (2011) 4656

(a)

(b)

(c)

Fig. 11. Single and periodical oscillatory motion measurement.

4.2.3. Transition to turbulence

In order to validate the present generation method from a
different view point, the behavior of transition to turbulence will be
discussed based on the laboratory data. Fig. 12 shows the
comparison of velocity obtained from present experiment and
numerical laminar solution at two elevations in the vicinity to the
wall for all cases. In this gure, because of slight deviation of the
free stream velocity in the measurements as compared with the
exact solution (Eq. (8)) as seen in Fig. 10, numerical laminar
solution is employed instead of Keulegan's (1948) theoretical
laminar solution.
In Fig. 12(a) for Re = 2.25 10 5, we can observe apparently that
excellent agreement is achieved between numerical laminar
solution and experimental result in a horizontal velocity timevariation.
Meanwhile, from Fig. 12(b) with Re = 5.64 10 5, we can notice
there is uctuation during decelerating phase, and also a small
deviation from numerical laminar solution can be seen obviously.
With the further increase of the Reynolds number, this phenomenon
can be more distinctly observed at Re = 6.06 10 5 and Re = 7.34 10 5
in Fig. 12(c) and (d), respectively. Especially in Fig. 12(d), it can be
seen clearly that turbulence or spike is generated suddenly in the
decelerating phase, while in the accelerating phase, the ow coincides
well with the numerical laminar solution. Similar behavior of
turbulence generation during decelerating period has already been
reported for sinusoidal boundary layers (e.g., Hino et al., 1976; Jensen
et al.,1989). Recently, based on direct measurement of bottom shear

stress under solitary wave boundary layer, Sumer et al. (2010)

reported similar spikes due to turbulent spot in the laminar-toturbulent regime.
From Figs. 13 to 16, vertical distribution of measured horizontal
velocity is shown for different Reynolds numbers. From Fig. 13
at Re = 2.25 10 5, we can observe clearly that the results of
experiment coincide well with the numerical laminar solution,
including the near-bottom ow reversal at the end of decelerating
phase. When Re increases to 5.64 10 5 (Fig. 14) and 6.06 10 5
(Fig. 15), although the velocity prole during the accelerating phase
shows good agreement with the numerical laminar solution, it starts to
deviate slightly from the numerical laminar ow near the bottom
during decelerating phase. It is noted in these gures that distinct
reduction of the ow reversal is observed near the bottom due to
turbulence generation as observed in Fig. 12(b) and (c). At the highest
Reynolds number, Re = 7.34 105, shown in Fig. 16, the velocity
distribution diverges from the numerical laminar solution earlier at
t = 4.0 s in the near bottom region. It is seen that the velocity observed
in Fig. 16 is quite similar to those obtained from DNS (see Fig. 7 in
Vittori and Blondeaux, 2011), although quantitative comparison
cannot be made.
Considering the experimental results shown in Figs. 13 to 16, it
can be concluded that the lowest Reynolds number case with
Re = 2.25 10 5 remains laminar regime, whereas the rest of three
cases already moved to transition to turbulence ow regime. As a
tentative demarcation, Re = 5.64 10 5 can be regarded as critical
Reynolds number for transition to turbulence.

H. Tanaka et al. / Coastal Engineering 59 (2011) 4656

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

53

Fig. 12. Time variation of velocity.

The critical Reynolds number thus obtained is plotted in a stability

diagram (Fig. 17) proposed by Sumer et al. (2010) along with numerical
simulation result from DNS by Vittori and Blondeaux (2008) and
experimental result by Sumer et al. (2010). In Fig. 17, the present
experiment of Case 22 is in good agreement with the critical Reynolds
number line at Re 5 105.
4.2.4. Boundary layer thickness
In case of sinusoidal wave boundary layers, consistent critical
Reynolds number from laminar to turbulence has been obtained in
terms of various quantities such as friction factor, phase difference
and boundary layer thickness (Jensen et al., 1989; Tanaka and Thu,
1994). In order to investigate distinct difference between sinusoidal
and solitary wave boundary in this regard, the behavior of boundary
layer thickness will be discussed in this section.
Sumer et al. (2010) made a rough estimation of boundary layer
thickness under solitary wave using a simple eddy viscosity model
expressed in terms of the maximum shear velocity. Except this study,

however, very little has been known regarding boundary layer

thickness due to solitary wave motion.
For sinusoidal wave boundary layers, there have been three
denitions for the boundary layer thickness (Sana and Tanaka, 2007).
Jonsson (1966) dened to be the minimum distance from the bottom
to a point where the ensemble-averaged velocity equals free stream wave
velocity amplitude. According to Jensen et al. (1989), is the distance
from the bottom to the point of maximum velocity amplitude. Sleath
(1987) expressed to be the distance from the bottom to a point where
defect velocity amplitude is 5% of the free stream velocity amplitude.
In this study, boundary layer thickness is dened as a distance
from the bottom to point where u = 0.95Uc under wave crest, being
similar to Sleath's (1987) denition. Because of the absence of
overshooting velocity under wave crest, Jonsson's (1966) and Jensen
et al.'s (1989) denitions cannot be used under solitary wave motion.
The reason of using 0.95Uc, instead of commonly used 0.99Uc is to
avoid inevitable uctuation in the experiments as described by Sleath
(1987). From the analytical solution of Keulegan (1948) for solitary

54

H. Tanaka et al. / Coastal Engineering 59 (2011) 4656

(a)

(a)

(b)

(b)
.

Fig. 13. Vertical velocity distribution (Case 21, Re = 2.25 105).

Fig. 14. Vertical velocity distribution (Case 22, Re = 5.64 105).

wave boundary layer, can be expressed in terms of Reynolds number

similar to sinusoidal waves.

2:9
= p
am
Re

17

In Fig. 18, boundary layer thickness from the present experiment

is shown along with laboratory data of Sumer et al. (2010). It is seen
that both of the experimental results show perfect agreement with
Eq. (17) throughout their experiment up to Re = 1.8 10 6, much
beyond the critical Reynolds number described above determined
form the velocity measurements. The reason is readily seen in
Figs. 14, 15 and 16; although the boundary layer thickness follows
the laminar solution (Eq. (17)) during the acceleration phase,
thereafter transition occurs during decelerating period. At the
highest Reynolds number shown in Fig. 16, the measured velocity
shows deviation from the numerical laminar solution even under
wave crest (t = 3.7 s) due to stronger turbulent generation.
However, it affects only in the near wall region in the immediate
vicinity to the bottom, without any modication of the velocity at
the elevation which satises u = 0.95Uc.

5. Conclusion
A new generation system for solitary wave boundary layer has
been applied in laboratory experiment for various values of
Reynolds number. Validations of the system have been done in
terms of free stream velocity, single and periodical oscillatory
motion measurements and also time variation of velocity distribution. Furthermore, the critical Reynolds number obtained from this
study shows good agreement with the nding of previous researchers. The development of the present new generation system
should lead to further experimental study on turbulent structure
and related phenomena such as sediment movement by facilitating
ensemble averaging.
Notations

a
a1
am
b
b*
d

Radius of semi circle or semi-minor axis length of ellipse

r
3H
4h3
Half of the stroke of water particle displacement
Semimajor axis length of ellipse
b/a
Total displacement of water particle

H. Tanaka et al. / Coastal Engineering 59 (2011) 4656

(a)

(a)

(b)

(b)

Fig. 15. Vertical velocity distribution (Case 23, Re = 6.06 105).

c
h

Wave celerity
Water depth in case of wave ume or half of the closed
conduit tunnel height in case of oscillating tunnel
Wave height
Reynolds number (Eq. (15))
Reynolds number (Eq. (3))
Time
Period of a rotating disk
Flow velocity
Free stream velocity
Maximum of free stream velocity
a1c
Parameter dened in Eq. (13)
Boundary layer thickness
q
p
2h = gh = h

Ratio of H and h
Fluid viscosity
Oscillation frequency

H
Re
Ra
t
T
u
U
Uc

55

Fig. 16. Vertical velocity distribution (Case 24, Re = 7.34 105).

Fig. 17. Stability diagram.

Acknowledgments
This research was partially supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientic
Research from Japan Society for Promotion of Science (No.22360193),

as well as by Open Fund for Scientic Research from State Key

Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, Sichuan
University, China.

56

H. Tanaka et al. / Coastal Engineering 59 (2011) 4656

Fig. 18. Boundary layer thickness.

References
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