EGN 330 Coastal Wave Mechanics

#02: Preliminaries

Zhangping (John) Wei, PhD, PE

Reminders
• MATLAB Installation
• Group project #1: Did you start to talk with group members?

2
Learning Objectives
• To prepare students for learning coastal wave theory by reviewing the
following topics:
• Math basics
• Fluid mechanics: Mass conservation, momentum conservation, Bernoulli
equation, velocity potential
• To address the boundary value problem associated with free surface
motion and explain the following concepts:
• Boundary value problem for water wave motion
• The governing partial differential equation
• The boundary conditions
• The kinematic boundary conditions
• The dynamic boundary conditions

3
Math Basics: I
• The most frequently used trigonometric & hyperbolic functions in this
course:
• sine(x), cosine(x), sinh(x), cosh(x), tanh(x)
• Be familiar with the integration, differentiation, asymptote, and limits
of those functions!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigonometry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_functions

4
Math Basics: II
• Dot product
• an algebraic operation that takes two equal-length sequences of numbers
(usually coordinate vectors), and returns a single number
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_product

• Cross product
• cross product of two vectors a and b is defined only in three-dimensional
space and is denoted by a × b
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_product

5
Mass conservation
• The law of mass conservation: mass is conserved,
and it cannot be created or destroyed.
Considering a reference cube:
• The rate at which fluid mass flows into the cube across
the various faces must equal the sum of the rate of
mass accumulation in the cube and the mass fluxes out
of the faces.
• Cartesian Coordinate System –
• Assumption: (x, y z)
• Velocity components (u, v, w) in
• Coastal water is assumed to be incompressible fluid. the (x, y, z)
• Each velocity component is a
function of (x, y, z, t), e.g., u (x,
y, z, t)
• Gravity is the external force; g is
gravitation acceleration

6
Mass conservation: continuity equation
• The continuity equation
• By assuming the flow density is constant, we have
• The flow field satisfying the above equation is
termed “non-divergent flow”.
• Cartesian Coordinate System –
(x, y z)
• Velocity components (u, v, w) in
the (x, y, z)
• Each velocity component is a
function of (x, y, z, t), e.g., u (x,
y, z, t)
• Gravity is the external force; g is
gravitation acceleration
7
Flow pressure & surface stress
• Gauge pressure is zero at the water surface.
• Hydrostatic pressure is a function of the depth of
the fluid

• Note that
• the z is negative underwater; thus, the hydrostatic
pressure is positive!
• Pressure is normal to the surface, and isotropic!
• Shear stress is caused by force acting tangentially
to a surface, and it is not isotropic.
• Shear stress is dependent on fluid viscosity and
fluid turbulence.
• Cartesian Coordinate System –
(x, y z)
• Velocity components (u, v, w) in
the (x, y, z)
• Each velocity component is a
function of (x, y, z, t), e.g., u (x,
y, z, t)
• Gravity is the external force; g is
gravitation acceleration

8
Equation of Motion (Newton’s 2nd Law)
• Newton’s 2nd Law: force = mass * acceleration

• In x direction, , the total derivative

• Cartesian Coordinate System –

• The external forces on the cube (x, y z)
• The normal stresses • Velocity components (u, v, w) in
the (x, y, z)
• The shear stresses • Each velocity component is a
• The body force (i.e., gravity) function of (x, y, z, t), e.g., u (x,
y, z, t)
• Gravity is the external force; g is
gravitation acceleration

9
Equation of Motion (Newton’s 2nd Law)
• Equations of motion (left) & Euler Equations (right)

• Cartesian Coordinate System –

(x, y z)
• Velocity components (u, v, w) in
the (x, y, z)
• Each velocity component is a
where 𝜇𝜇 is the dynamic viscosity. Euler equations function of (x, y, z, t), e.g., u (x,
assume that 𝜇𝜇 is zero or the shear stresses are zero. y, z, t)
• Gravity is the external force; g is
gravitation acceleration

10
Velocity potential function
• It is a function of the spatial derivatives that are equal to the velocities of the
water particles (*).

• Why do we learn it? To simplify the solution of the fluid dynamics equation!
As we plug the above terms into the continuity equation, we have

• The above equation is called the Laplace equation. The flow field satisfying
the above equation is irrotational because the cross-product of the velocity
vector is zero.

•
Footnote: * Some textbooks don’t include the negative sign in front of the derivative.
11
Features of velocity potential
• Velocity potential is scalar quantities, from which we can derive the
velocity vector field.
• It is easier to work with scalar than vector functions (they will be used in wave
theory derivation in this course!).
• If the fluid is irrotational, then the velocity potential exists!
• If the velocity potential exists and the fluid is incompressible,

12
Bernoulli Equation
• How to derive the Bernoulli equation?
• It is an integrated form of equations of motion
• Why is it useful?
• It provides a relationship between the pressure field and kinematics

Equations of motion Irrotationality condition Velocity potential

Two forms of Bernoulli equation

13
Partial Differential Equation
• A partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation that imposes
relations between the various partial derivatives of a multivariable
function, e.g., the velocity potential Laplace equation:

• How to solve a partial differential equation?

• The Separation of Variables method, which applies to linear homogenous
partial differential equations with linear homogeneous boundary conditions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_differential_equation 14
Boundary value problems (BVPs)
• Three parts:
• The region of interest and its governing
differential equations
• The condition/value along the region
boundaries
• A temporal state of interest or an initial
condition
• For free surface water wave motion,
• What is the governing differential
equation?
• What kind of boundaries do we have to
consider?

Credit: Wikipedia 15
Governing equations for water wave motion
• The governing differential equation is established with assumptions
• The fluid is incompressible
• The fluid is irrotational
• The second-order differential equations for velocity potential and
stream function, i.e., Laplace equation.

or

• The Laplace equation is linear; thus, we can superpose any functions

satisfying the Laplace equation, e.g.,

16
What are boundary conditions in a 2D (x-z) domain?
• We need to specify
• free surface boundary condition
• bottom boundary condition
• lateral boundary condition

Credit: Dean & Dalrymple (1991), Fig 3.1(b)

• Kinematics vs. Dynamics
• Kinematics is the study of motion without regard for the cause (e.g., the
water particle velocity).
• Dynamics is the study of motions that result from forces (e.g., free surface
motion due to pressure and gravity)

17
Kinematic boundary condition
• It establishes a relationship between any fixed or free boundary with
its water particle velocity.
• The rules:
• There must be no flow across the interface. Otherwise, it is not an interface.
• The boundary profile is expressed as F(x,y,z,t) = 0. The total derivative of
F(x,y,z,t) should be zero (i.e., the water particle remains near the surface
during the motion)
• What’s next?
• We will use the above rules to develop/derive the expression of water
particle kinematics (i.e., velocities) along the boundary in two steps:
• Define the boundary profile F(x,y,z,t) = 0
• Find its total derivate and set it as zero to solve for velocity

18
Kinematic boundary condition (cont’d)
• Any boundary profile can be expressed as F(x,y,z,t) = 0
• The total derivative is

• Rearranging the above expression, introducing vector differential

operator, and normal vector, we have

where

• Now we find the expression for water particle velocity at F(x,y,z,t) =0

19
Bottom boundary condition (BBC)
• If we assume that in 2D x-z domain the bottom does not change over
time and it is expressed by z = -h(x), then F(x, z) = z + h(x) = 0.
where

• The vertical velocity at z = -h(x) is

or

• If the bed is flat z = -h, then the vertical velocity at the bed is zero.
or

20
Kinematic free surface boundary condition (KFSBC)
• If we assume that the free surface is expressed by, then

• We derive the water particle velocity by

where and

• By carrying out dot product, we find velocities at

21
Dynamic free surface boundary condition (DFSBC)
• There is an external force (i.e., pressure) along the free surface.
• Recall that the Bernoulli equation provides a relationship between
the pressure and kinematics.
• We can assume that the pressure is constant along the free surface.
As a result, the DFSBC at based on the Bernoulli equation
is

• Free surface profile can be obtained once velocity potential is solved!

22
Periodic lateral boundary condition
• If we assume that waves are periodic in space and time for a 2D
domain, we will have

where L is the wavelength, and T is the wave period.

23
Summary of 2D periodic water wave BVP
• Governing partial differential • Free surface boundary condition
equation between 0 < x < L, and • KFSBC at
–h < z <

• Bottom boundary condition at z

= -h

• DFSBC at
• Periodic lateral boundary
condition

24
What’s next?
• We want to find the velocity
potential that satisfies the
boundary value problem!
• A math problem by the separation
of variables method.
• From the perspective of coastal
engineering, we don’t use the
velocity potential in engineering
practice! Velocity and water levels
are commonly used.
• We want to find the dispersion
relationship that describes the
relationship between its
frequency and wavelength as
wave propagates from offshore
to nearshore.
• This is the essential relationship
governing wave transformation.
• We will apply a technique called
linearization to derive linear
dispersion relationship!

We will skip the separation of variables part, and we will introduce the linearization principle for linear
dispersion relationship derivation!
25
Linearization: Why do we need it?
• DFSBC establishes the relationship between velocity potential and
free surface profile.
• If the velocity potential is unknown, then the free surface is a priori
unknown location as well!
• Let’s use Taylor Series Expansion to express the DFSBC at the
unknown free surface with the value at a known location z = 0.

26
Linearization: How do we carry it out for DFSBC?
• We consider small-amplitude waves, and the corresponding velocities
and pressure are expected to be small as well. More than that, their
products are even smaller.

which gives or

27
Linearization: How do we carry it out for KFSBC?
• We consider small-amplitude waves, and the corresponding velocities
and pressure are expected to be small as well. More than that, their
products are even smaller.

which gives or

28
Solution to the linearized equations
• Linearized DFSBC

• Linearized KFSBC

• The following two expressions will satisfy the DFSBC equation above
• The free surface profile

• The velocity potential solution

• However, one additional relationship must be met to satisfy the

KFSBC,

29
Linear dispersion relationship
• The free surface profile

• The velocity potential solution

• The linear dispersion relationship establishes a relationship between

wave frequency (or wave period) and wave wavelength.

• is the wave number • h is the local water depth

• is the angular frequency • H is the wave height
• g is the gravitation acceleration • T is the wave period
• L is the wavelength 30
Review Questions
• Please list the assumption(s) we made when deriving the continuity
equation.
• If we say a flow field is non-divergent, which equation/criterion must
it satisfy?
• If we say a flow field is irrotational in 2D x-z domain, which
equation/criterion must it satisfy?
• Is there a way to obtain the velocity potential if we know the velocity
components? If yes, how to do it?
• What is the approximate value of tanh (x) when x approaches the
constant Pi, and what is the approximate value when x approaches
2*pi?
31
Review Questions
• What is the governing differential equation for the boundary value
problems for water wave motion? What assumptions must be made
to use it?
• For a 2D x-z domain, how many boundary conditions must be
specified to solve the boundary value problem?
• If there is no particle leaving a free surface, which criterion should it
meet?
• What is the equation we used to establish the surface profile and its
kinematics?
• For a periodic lateral boundary condition, what criteria must it
satisfy?
32