Measurement of the Scale Effect on Breaking Waves

Abstract

Laser scanning technology, LiDAR, has been used to measure free-surface water profiles in the laboratory and in the field and the effect of scale has been investigated in the application of wave breaking theory. As a result of the calculation of wave parameters, such as breaker index and crest elevation, the difference between flume generated waves and waves in the surf zone were observed. The results show that while in most cases the field and laboratory derived breaking waves behave similarly, under some conditions for waves in the flume the breaking criteria limits can be reached and whether this is a results of scale effects is investigated.