Particle transport and resuspension by shoaling internal solitary waves

Particle resuspension due to shoaling internal solitary waves is studied through laboratory experiments and direct numerical simulations. Experiments examine particles placed along the sloping bottom to observe when and where bed load transport and particle resuspension occur. Through a comparison of velocimetry measurements between the experiments and the simulations, the accuracy of the numerical results is established. A suite of simulations is conducted to investigate the dependence of the location of incipient particle resuspension on the bottom slope and incident wave parameters. While a rapid increase in the Shields parameter in the lee of the shoaling wave corresponds to the observed location of resuspension, we find that particle transport away from the bottom is better assessed by the resuspension criterion w(L)/w(s) > 1, where w(s) is the particle settling velocity and w(L) = w - su is the vertical Lagrangian velocity in which (u)over-right-arrow = (u, w) is the Eulerian velocity and s is the slope, which measures the rise of fluid from the bottom following a streamline.