Roles of breaking and reflection in wave energy attenuation on the shoreface-nourished beach.

This article investigates the relative contributions of wave breaking and reflection to wave energy loss on shoreface-nourished beaches featuring artificial sandbars, using physical wave flume experiments complemented by numerical simulations with the fully nonlinear Boussinesq model FUNWAVE-TVD. Results indicate that wave breaking-induced dissipation dominates over reflection, with reflection accounting for only 4% to 11% of total energy loss, while the artificial sandbar's bulk reflection coefficient ranges from 0.19 to 0.36 and its contribution to reflection lies between that of the underwater slope and shoreline. The study further shows that wave transmission shoreward of the artificial sandbar decreases with shallower bar crest depth and closer proximity to the shoreline, and that trapezoidal sandbars promote more intense wave breaking and greater wave energy dissipation than triangular ones. Recognizing the erodible nature of artificial sandbars, the authors suggest future research employing hydro-morphological coupled models to capture the dynamic evolution of wave breaking and reflection during morphological changes.