2009
1 October 2009: project officially starts.
November 2009 - February 2010: working on a sediment transport model implementation in the General Ocean Turbulence Model (GOTM: ).
2010
January 2010: work starts on a new fully programmable oscillatory grid sediment turbulence tank.
February 2010: Daniel Buscombe attending Ocean Sciences in Portland, USA. He will be presenting initial results with a grain size distribution in GOTM, in his paper entitled "Modeling sand resuspension and stratification in turbulent nearshore flows: sensitivity to grain size distribution." Results have highlighted the importance of parameterising Schmidt number, and highlighted the sensitivity of sediment bottom boundary condition to mixtures of grain sizes.
February 2010: 3-week field campaign is planned June 2011 at Sennen Cove.
February 2010: Daniel Buscombe presents to the ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓÆµ Centre for Coastal Science and Engineering (CCOSE) on the TSSARWaves project.
Spring 2010. The scientific programme for TSSARWaves has a fundamental reliance on the acquisition of a Fibre Optic Backscatter Sensor (FOBS). The instrument source (University of Washington, UW) lost their ability to produce additional models. Fortunately in negotiations with the ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓÆµ (UoP), they have released their plans and documentation for sensor assembly.
Spring - Autumn 2010: GOTM sediment transport model with mixed sediment performs well compared to laboratory measurements of sediment transport in unidirectional and oscillatory (U-tube) flows. Work begins on improving our understanding of apparent critical shear stress in sediments with a distribution of grain sizes. An analysis of 81 separate laboratory experiments has resulted in a unified predictive relationship for the effective critical shear stress for arbitrary mixtures of sediment grain sizes. This is a key development for the ability to predictively model sediment dynamics.
April 2010: Daniel Conley presents a paper entitled "Effects of Grain Size Distributions on Fluid-Sediment Feedback" at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2010, Vienna.
Summer 2010: 3-week field campaign will take place at Praa Sands (in between Penzance and Helston in Cornwall) in May 2011. The decision was taken because the sand at Praa has a higher mineralogic content than Sennen, which is predominantly calcite. Praa is south-west facing and is expected to provide high energy surf for the experiment. Two Nortek Vectrinos have been purchased which have the capability to measure the 3 components of water velocity at 200Hz. The deployment of these sensors, as well a Holographic particle imaging camera (made by Alex Nimmo-Smith), in the surf zone are world firsts.