2 Beach Profile Surveys 

 and Sediment Sampling 

 at SUPERTANK 1 



Introduction 



The SUPERTANK Data Collection Project was originally conceived to 

 supply data for improving existing numerical simulation models of cross-shore 

 processes and beach profile change and for developing the next generation of 

 such models. The technical objectives of SUPERTANK were expanded in 

 subsequent planning by the Principal Investigators, as discussed in Chapter 1 

 of this report, to encompass a wide range of interests in hydrodynamic and 

 sediment-transport processes, and instrument testing. Information on the 

 shape and evolution of the beach profile remained central to all SUPERTANK 

 investigations, however. Interest in profile change measurement continued in 

 the tradition of the pioneering data collection project conducted in the world's 

 first large wave channel constructed and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of 

 Engineers (Saville 1956, Kraus and Larson 1988). Accurate survey data are 

 required for studying beach profile response, developing profile change simu- 

 lation models, calculating wave transformation and cross-shore currents 

 (which are major research objectives in themselves, besides being necessary 

 for beach profile change modeling), and determining the vertical positions of 

 instruments. 



During SUPERTANK, approximately 350 profile surveys were made of 

 the 70- to 80-m-long sandy bottom to record the response of the beach profile 

 to wave action and to changes in shoreward boundary conditions, such as the 

 presence of a seawall or dune. To put this number of surveys in perspective, 

 in an ongoing 11 -year program of beach profile surveys made every 2 weeks 

 or more frequently at the Field Research Facility (FRF), located in Duck, 

 NC, operated by the Coastal Engineering Research Center (CERC), U.S. 

 Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station (WES), the data set for the 



'Written by Nicholas C. Kraus, Coastal Engineering Research Center (CERC), U.S. Army 

 Engineer Waterways Experiment Station, Daniel T. Cox, University of Delaware, and Cheryl 

 Burke Pollack, CERC. 



Chapter 2 Beach Profile Surveys and Sediment Sampling 



39 



