84 CHAPTER 4.

PHYSICAL MODEL

(a) (b)

Figure 4.5: Transformed coordinate σ̂ = F (σ) (a) and vertical grid spacing
normalised to the total water depth ∆σ̂ = ∂F/∂σ/N (b): formulation (4.23)
with σ∗ = 0.25, s0 = 0.1 (solid), (4.24) with the same parameter values
(dots), (4.26) with dl = du = 1.5 (dashes).

The distance between two neighbouring points in 3-D space now becomes

∆d2 = h21 ∆ξ12 + h22 ∆ξ22 + h23 ∆s2 (4.30)

Song & Haidvogel (1994) related the s-coordinate to the σ-coordinate by

letting

F = sH − h + hF∗ (x1 , x2 , s) , F∗ (x1 , x2 , 0) = F∗ (x1 , x2 , 1) = 0 (4.31)

Equation (4.29) is re-written as

∂F∗ h ∂F∗ ∂F∗

h3 = H + h = H(1 + ) ' H(1 + ) (4.32)
∂s H ∂s ∂s
where the approximation is made that h ' H. The assumption is reasonable
since the s-coordinate is designed for non-shallow areas with large bathymet-
ric gradients, such as shelf breaks. The s-coordinate, defined by (4.31) is
related to the σ-coordinate by
h
σ =s+ F∗ (x1 , x2 , s) ' s + F∗ (x1 , x2 , s) (4.33)
H
and
∆z ∂F∗
∆σ = ' (1 + )∆s (4.34)
H ∂s
which means that the Sung-Haidvogel s-coordinate can be seen as a gener-
alised σ-coordinate with non-uniform spacings in the horizontal if F∗ 6= 0.