Job desciption
The prospective candidate will work in the project “Shaping the beach: cross-shore sand transport in the swash zone”. This project is funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).
The highly dynamic swash zone sand transport processes are not fully understood and no generally-valid numerical swash zone sand transport models are available. This greatly hampers the prediction of beach and shoreline evolution, and the sediment exchange between the wet and dry part of the beach. The 'Shaping The Beach'-project aims to develop a new parameterisation for sand transport in the swash zone, through a combination of detailed wave flume experiments and advanced numerical modeling.
The project accommodates 2 PhD positions and 1 Post-Doc position at the University of Twente (Faculty of Engineering Technology, ET) in close co-operation with Deltares and Delft University of Technology. The 'Shaping The Beach'-project collaborates with researchers from the Technical University of Catalunya (Spain), University of Delaware (USA) and University of Aberdeen (UK), and requires interaction with end-users from the Dutch public and private water sector.
PhD project description
In this PhD project laboratory experiments will be carried out in the large-scale Barcelona wave flume, and these data will be used to better understand and model swash zone sand dynamics. Two types of experiments are foreseen: the ‘TRANS’ and the ‘PROC’ experiments. The TRANS experiments focus on quantifying the net (i.e. swash-averaged) total transport rates across the swash zone and the total sediment load exchanged between the inner surf and swash zone for a high number and wide range of swash events. For selected conditions, hydrodynamic and sediment transport processes will be investigated in great detail using sophisticated instrumentation (PROC experiments). These data, together with input from detailed, intra-swash numerical models developed by the other PhD candidate in the project, will be used to develop a practical swash sand transport model. This transport model will later be implemented in engineering morphological models (e.g. Delft3D, MIKE and Telemac) to study large-scale, long-term (years) and 2D morphodynamics.
The research will be executed at the University of Twente, under supervision of the promotor (prof.dr. Suzanne Hulscher) and daily supervisors (dr.ir. Jebbe van der Werf and dr.ir. Bart Vermeulen), in close co-operation with Technical University of Catalunya, concerning the wave flume experiments.
Interested?
Visit the UTwente website for more information about this PhD position, the desired candidate, the offer and application procedure. Your application should be submitted before 2nd of June.
