Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics for Surf Zone Waves

The objectives of this project are to improve the Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics SPH model for use in examining the physics of breaking waves, including the description of the wave-induced turbulence and sediment transport within the surf zone. Improvements to SPH have been necessary to improve the ability of the method to treat shallow water flows. To develop a computationally useful model of the full surf zone, which means coupling SPH to a more computationally efficient far-field model. The approach is based on improving various aspects of the open source SPH code, SPHysics applying the code to more validation tests and to examine in some detail new aspects of the model by applying it to different situations. A new effort this year has been to begin implementing SPHysics on the GPU for drastic improvements in computational time. A hybrid model, this, a coupled SPH particle model and conventional finite difference model, the Boussinesq model, FUNWAVE, provides the ability to model large areas.