PREFACE 



This report is published to provide coastal engineers with a formulation 

 and a set of nomographs for determining the breaking wave characteristics, 

 such as breaking wave height, depth of breaking, and angle of breaking wave 

 with a straight shoreline, as functions of the deepwater wave characteristics 

 wave height, wave period, and wave angle. This formulation is necessary to 

 determine the littoral drift transport; however, to obtain such results, a 

 review of nonlinear wave transformation is presented. A "hybrid" wave ap- 

 proach based on linear (or Stokes third order) and cnoidal waves is proposed 

 as the best theory from available experimental data. The work was carried 

 out under the coastal structures program of the Coastal Engineering Research 

 Center (CERC) . 



This report was prepared by Bernard Le Mehaute, Professor and Chairman, 

 and John D. Wang, Associate Professor, Ocean Engineering, Rosenstiel School 

 of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, 

 under CERC Contract No. DACW72-79-C-0005. 



The authors acknowledge the assistance of Drs. J.R. Weggel and F.E. 

 Camfield, CERC, for the guidance provided during the course of the investi- 

 gation and for the review of the final report. 



Drs. Weggel and Camfield were the CERC contract monitors for the report, 

 under the general supervision of N.E. Parker, Chief, Engineering Development 

 Division. 



Comments on this publication are invited. 



Approved for publication in accordance with Public Law 166, 79th Congress , 

 approved 31 July 1945, as supplemented by Public Law 172, 88th Congress, 

 approved 7 November 1963. 



TED E. BISHOP 



Colonel, Corps of Engineers 



Commander and Director 



