Coastal Engineering 186 (2023) 104394

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Coastal Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/coastaleng

A non-Darcy flow based analytical solution for the exit point movement
under the wave induced swash condition
Mingzhe Yang, Yihao Zheng, Haijiang Liu *
College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Seepage face and the corresponding exit point (EP) contribute to the sophisticated groundwater hydrodynamics
Exit point in the coastal aquifer. Several analytical solutions have been presented to estimate the EP movement. Never­
Seepage face theless, previous theoretical studies are all limited to the Darcy flow assumption which is not applicable under
Non-Darcy flow effect
the wave induced swash condition. In this study, a more general condition taking into account the non-Darcy
Truncated capillary fringe
Decay parameter
flow effect with the Forchheimer formula was considered. Applying the v-transform method, a new analytical
Wave swash solution was derived to represent the swash induced EP movement under the wave action. Subsequently, detailed
analyses of the EP movement characteristics were conducted, upon which its temporal variation features, as well
as the influence of the non-Darcy flow effect and beach slope, were scrutinized. In addition, a decay parameter is
used to describe the further reduction of the aquifer storage coefficient resulting from the truncated capillary
fringe. By inter-comparing the available experimental data with the newly derived analytical solution, the
optimal decay parameter was found to be 0.46. These new findings are of great importance to extend our un­
derstandings of the wave induced groundwater hydrodynamics in the swash zone.

1. Introduction
Tide and wave are the two predominant external driving forces
affecting the groundwater movement in coastal aquifers (Yang et al.,
2022a; Zheng et al., 2022a). With the tide and/or wave induced
shoreline movement, beach face is intermittently covered by the water
and exposed to the air, and the seepage face forms during the water
fallback process (Nielsen, 1990). The seepage face is the boundary of the
coastal groundwater movement. Accurate estimation of the seepage face
variation features can help to properly understand the spatial-temporal
characteristics of the coastal groundwater dynamics (Bear, 1972),
especially during the swash backwash stage (Zheng et al., 2023), which
is of importance to some scientific and engineering problems, such as
saltwater intrusion and beach stability (Horn, 2006; Nielsen, 2009).
The seepage face has been widely reported both in field observations
and laboratory experiments under tide and wave conditions (Turner,
1995; Steenhauer et al., 2011). The seepage face could be identified by a
shiny appearance surface among the sloping beach (Steenhauer et al.,
2011). In comparison, there exists a matt appearance beach surface
landward beyond the exit point (EP hereafter), where the meniscus
forms among the surface sand particles (Zheng et al., 2022b). The
seepage face is recognized as a unique boundary along the sloping beach
surface in between the instantaneous shoreline and the groundwater
table, and the EP is the upper limit of the seepage face (Bear, 1972).
Nielsen (1990) showed seepage face could maintain the groundwater
table at a high level with the decoupling of the fallback water shoreline
and the EP. Cartwright et al. (2006) conducted experiments in a wave
induced swash zone, and found the cross-shore energy distribution is
strongly dependent on position of the seepage face which would reduce
attenuation magnitude of the pressure wave. Zheng et al.’s (2022b)
laboratory experiment indicated the seepage face would restrict the
hysteresis effect on phase shift of the total groundwater head. An ac­
curate estimation of the time-varying features of the EP movement is
essential to properly describe the dynamic characteristics of the seepage
face, thus the corresponding coastal groundwater hydrodynamics
(Zheng et al., 2023).
To accurately investigate the EP characteristics, it is essential to
comprehend its movement properties. Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of
the groundwater dynamics during the swash backwash stage in the
coastal aquifer. In Fig. 1, the groundwater undergoes a declining state
during the swash backwash, and the seepage velocity direction of
groundwater flow near the EP is downward to the area below it.

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: haijiangliu@zju.edu.cn (H. Liu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coastaleng.2023.104394
Received 6 June 2023; Received in revised form 31 July 2023; Accepted 9 September 2023
Available online 12 September 2023
0378-3839/© 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
M. Yang et al.
However, the seepage velocity direction of the groundwater flow along
the seepage face points towards the outside area of the sand beach (Bear,
1972). EP is the intersection of the groundwater table and the beach
surface, at which the seepage flow direction should meet the above­
mentioned two criteria. Accordingly, its moving direction has to be
parallel to the sloping beach surface. This has been theoretically proved
in Bear (1972), which is the primary assumption of the governing
equation for the EP movement (Turner, 1993; Cartwright et al., 2006).
There exist several analytical solutions for estimating the EP move­
ment, initiating from the tide scenario. Based on the Newton’s second
law, Turner (1993) proposed the governing equation of the time-varying
EP movement under the tide condition, and to the authors’ knowledge,
this is the first analytical model for predicting the EP movement. Tur­
ner’s (1993) result showed that the EP moving velocity is related to the
beach slope, the hydraulic conductivity and the effective porosity of the
sand beach. In his solution, criterion for the occurrence of seepage face is
referred to Dracos (1963), which is used to predict the decoupling speed
of the falling tide. Only when the retreating shoreline velocity reaches a
certain level, the EP detaches from the shoreline forming a noticeable
seepage face, which indicates the seepage face does not appear imme­
diately during the ebb tide process. Afterwards, Cartwright et al. (2006)
reported that there also exists the seepage face in the swash zone, and
pointed out that the analytical solution of Turner (1993) is not suitable
for predicting the EP movement under the wave induced swash condi­
tion. Cartwright et al. (2006) suggested that rather than the traditional
effective porosity, the dynamic effective porosity considering the effect
of capillary fringe should be used regarding the EP movement in the
swash zone. They also argued that seepage face could result in a further
reduction of the aquifer storage coefficient, so a decay parameter cor­
responding to the dynamic effective porosity was considered in their
model. More specifically, Zheng et al. (2022b) attributed such reduction
to the truncated capillary fringe. Accordingly, the modified analytical
solution in Cartwright et al. (2006) fits well with their field measured
data, better than the performance of Turner’s (1993) analytical solution.
In addition, different from the tide situation, both the field observation
and the model results in Cartwright et al. (2006) show that the formation
of the seepage face is almost instantaneous with the retreating shoreline.
With respect to the abovementioned literatures, there exist some
limitations to accurately estimate the EP movement features. Though
considering the truncated capillary fringe under the wave induced
swash condition, Cartwright et al. (2006) still used the same governing
equation as Turner (1993) which however is only suitable for the tide
condition. The seepage velocity near the beach surface has been found to
be far greater than 1 cm/s in the swash zone (Cartwright et al., 2006;
Puleo, 2009; Deng et al., 2015), which is inconsistent with the laminar
flow assumption in the tide-orientated governing equation of Turner
(1993). In addition, the decay parameter of the truncated capillary
fringe was suggested as 0.5 by Cartwright et al. (2006), which never­
theless is short of theoretical and practical foundations. In view of the
above issues, the objective of this study is to consider the non-Darcy flow
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the groundwater dynamics during the swash backwash stage (after Cartwright et al., 2006; Shoushtari et al., 2015). Arrows represent
the direction of the groundwater flow.
2
Coastal Engineering 186 (2023) 104394
effect in the governing equation of the EP movement under the wave
induced swash condition, and to derive a new analytical solution to
estimate the EP movement during the swash backwash process, upon
which its temporal variation features, as well as the effect of the
non-Darcy flow and beach slope, are presented. In addition, with respect
to the available experimental data and the newly derived analytical
solution, this study suggests a more reliable decay parameter of the
truncated capillary fringe along the seepage face.
Based on the experimental observation of the groundwater hydro­
dynamics under the solitary wave actions in Zheng et al. (2022b), this
study scrutinizes the EP movement characteristics. Subsequently, a
theoretical model of the EP movement under the wave-induced swash
was proposed. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the
experiment observation of the time-varying EP movement. Previous
analytical models and the new analytical model, as well as the corre­
sponding analytical solutions are presented in Section 3. Section 4
carefully examines the EP movement features, and suggests an optimal
value of the decay parameter of truncated capillary fringe. Finally,
conclusions are drawn in Section 5.
2. Experiment observation
Zheng et al. (2022b) conducted a series of laboratory experiments to
investigate the groundwater dynamics under the solitary wave induced
swash condition over a 1:10 sloping sand beach with the median sand
diameter of 0.356 mm. The incident solitary wave height is 5.7 cm. In
the experiment, two cameras (60 fps) were used to record the
time-varying EP movement and instantaneous shoreline position during
the entire swash event. Details about the experimental setup could be
referred to Zheng et al. (2022b).
Fig. 2 shows the temporal variation of the shoreline position and EP
Fig. 2. Temporal variations of the shoreline and EP movement under the sol­
itary wave induced swash in Zheng et al. (2022b), together with the model
(both the Darcy and non-Darcy flow based) predicted EP results. The backwash
shoreline is defined as a position where the local water depth is 5 mm in Zheng
et al. (2022b) due to the measurement difficulty from the wet beach surface
during the backwash stage, resulting in the discontinuity between the uprush
and backwash shorelines.
M. Yang et al. Coastal Engineering 186 (2023) 104394

movement in the experiment, which are extracted from the experiment

K sin β
process by image analysis. In Zheng et al. (2022b), time ‘zero’ corre­ u(t) = + Me− gnt/K
(3)
n
sponds to the moment when the incoming solitary wave crest passes
through the wave gauge deployed 1 m ahead of the beach toe. As shown where M is a coefficient which can be specified from the initial condi­
in Fig. 2, the seepage face forms right after the initiation of the backwash tion. Considering the physical characteristics of the seepage face, the EP
process, and the EP keeps moving downward (seaward). Formation of movement velocity is 0 when it initially separates from the retreating
the seepage face is found almost instantaneous with the retreating shoreline, so the initial condition of Eq. (2) is (Cartwright et al., 2006)
shoreline (as also observed under the in-situ wave condition in Cart­
wright et al., 2006), which is different from the tide condition (Turner, u(0) = 0 (4)
1993). In addition, the EP movement shows a relatively uniform Accordingly, the final solution of Eq. (2) is
retreating velocity with the straight down-sloping line in Fig. 2.
Nevertheless, the retreating velocity slightly decreases at the end of the K sin β ( )
u(t) = 1 − e− gnt/K
(5)
EP movement because in the experiment, the reflected wave could push n
the near surface groundwater ahead of the uprush shoreline to exfiltrate
With time passing by, the EP velocity approaches an equilibrium value
from the beach (Zheng et al., 2022b, 2023), which retards the regression
since e− gnt/K ≪1.
of the EP movement. In the following discussions, the equilibrium stage
of the EP movement between 7.0 s and 10.3 s will be mainly considered, K sin β
ue = (6)
i.e., the middle stable section of the measured EP curve, during which n
the measured equilibrium EP moving velocity is 16.7 cm/s. The pre­
dicted EP movements from the analytical solutions with the Darcy and where ue is the equilibrium EP moving velocity under the tide condition,
non-Darcy flow assumptions are also plotted in Fig. 2 for reference, which is only related to the hydraulic conductivity K, the beach slope
which will be explained later in Section 4.1. angle β, and the effective porosity n. The accuracy of Eq. (6) has been
verified with respect to the field measurement in Turner (1995).
3. Theoretical model and analytical solution Later, Cartwright et al. (2006) observed that there exists an evident
seepage face phenomenon during the wave induced swash process. After
3.1. Existing analytical model simulation, they pointed out that the analytical solution of Turner
(1993) is not suitable for predicting the EP movement in the swash zone.
Based on the Newton’s second law, governing equation for esti­ Cartwright et al. (2006) attributed this to the capillary effect and argued
mating the EP movement along the beach surface in the coastal aquifer is that under the wave induced swash condition, the dynamic effective
(Turner, 1993) porosity nd , rather than the traditional effective porosity n, should be
∑ used, which could be estimated as
mac = Fi (1)
nd50
nd = (7)
HΨ
where m is the mass of water unit body, ac is the acceleration of EP
∑
movement, Fi is the total force exerted on the water unit body. where d50 is the median diameter of beach sediment, and HΨ is the
As shown in Fig. 3, at the EP, the total force exerted on the water unit capillary fringe height. Taking into account the Cartwright et al.’s
includes the seepage force F1 = mgi and its own gravity F2 = − (2006) field data, nd is found to be 0.001 times of n. Eq. (7) indicates that
mg sin β, where g is the gravitational acceleration, i is the hydraulic a small amount of water change, only on the scale of a grain diameter,
gradient, and β is the beach slope angle. These two forces provide the can cause fluctuations in the groundwater table up to the height of a
acceleration of the water particles along the beach surface. Under the capillary fringe (Hang and Liu, 2018). Meanwhile, Cartwright et al.
tide condition, seepage velocity of the groundwater movement is rather (2006) also pointed out that it is necessary to consider a further reduced
small and the seepage force is mainly controlled by the Darcy flow effect, dynamic effective porosity nred with respect to the truncated capillary
where i = uD /K (uD is the Darcy seepage flow velocity). Thus the seepage fringe along the seepage face as
force F1 can be expressed as mgn K u(t), where u(t) = uD /n is the instanta­
neous EP movement velocity, t is the time, n is the effective porosity, and nred = s
nd50
(8)
K is the hydraulic conductivity. Accordingly, Eq. (1) can be expressed as HΨ

du mgn where s is the decay parameter of the dynamic effective porosity. In

m + u − mg sin β = 0 (2)
dt K Cartwright et al. (2006), the decay parameter is suggested to be 0.5. As a
Eq. (2) is an ordinary differential equation, and the corresponding result, the recommended value of the reduced dynamic effective
analytical solution could be derived as porosity is 0.0005 times of the effective porosity, i.e., nred = 0.0005n.
Their field measured data also verified that the modified analytical

Fig. 3. Force analysis of the EP movement along the beach surface.

3
M. Yang et al. Coastal Engineering 186 (2023) 104394

solution can better predict the EP movement in the swash zone than
B
Turner (1993). v= − + Me(A+2Bup )t (18)
A + 2Bup

3.2. New analytical model Substituting Eqs. (13) and (18) into Eq. (14)
1
In the swash zone, both the laboratory and field experiments have u = up + (19)
− B
+ Me(A+2Bup )t
shown that the EP movement velocity could reach 5.5 cm/s in Cart­ A+2Bup

wright et al. (2006), 10.7 cm/s in Puleo (2009), or 16.7 cm/s in Zheng Considering the initial condition, i.e., Eq. (4), the final analytical
et al. (2022b). The corresponding Reynolds numbers (using the median solution of the EP moving velocity is obtained as
diameter of beach sediment as the characteristic length) are 15.4, 47.08
and 59.07 respectively, which all exceed the threshold value of 10 for u = up + (
1
) (20)
the Darcy flow assumption as recommended in Bear (1972). Therefore, − B
A+2Bup
+ B
A+2Bup
− 1
up
e(A+2Bup )t
Cartwright et al.’s (2006) analytical solution should not be applicable
under the wave induced swash condition. Here, the Forchheimer for­ As revealed from the experiment observation, the EP moving velocity
mula is considered, which is usually used to describe the hydraulic reaches its equilibrium state quickly. The equilibrium EP moving ve­
gradient i of the seepage force with the non-Darcy flow effect (Burcharth locity ue could be obtained from Eq. (20) in the case of the large time t as
and Andersen, 1995; Moro Filho and Malalasekera, 2020), √̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
− nred a + nred 2 a2 + 4nred b sin β
ue = (21)
i = auD + bu2D (9) 2nred b
As shown in Eq. (21), the EP moving velocity based on the non-Darcy
where a and b are two coefficients determining the seepage force. Eq. (9)
flow assumption is not only just related to the beach slope and the
indicates a non-linear relation between the hydraulic gradient i and the
reduced dynamic effective porosity, but also determined by the non-
Darcy seepage flow velocity uD , being different from the linear relation
Darcy parameters a and b.
presented in the Darcy law.
By extracting the common factor nred a from the numerator, Eq. (21)
Substituting Eq. (9) into F1 = mgi and taking into account the exist­
can be transformed as
ing model specified in Section 3.1, the governing equation of the EP
(√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅ )
movement could be updated as nred a 4nred b sin β
ue = 1+ − 1 (22)
du 2nred b nred 2 a2
+ nred gau + nred gbu2 − g sin β = 0 (10)
dt
When coefficient b approaches zero (the Darcy flow condition),
Hereby, parameters A = nred ga, B = nred gb and C = g sin β are introduced √̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
to simplify the expression of the coefficients in Eq. (10) 1 + 4nnredredb2 sin
a2
β
≈ 1 + 2nnredredb2 sin
a2
β
since (1 + x)1/2 ≈ 1 + 12 x if x is infinites­
( )
nred a 2nred b sin β
du imal, thus ue ≈ 2n red b nred 2 a2
= nsinred βa. In addition, considering the hy­
+ Au + Bu2 − C = 0 (11)
dt draulic conductivity K = 1a under the laminar Darcy flow condition (Eq.
Eq. (11) is a first order nonlinear ordinary differential equation, (9)), Eq. (22) can be modified as
which cannot be solved by the traditional mathematical methods. Here, (
nred a 2nred b sin β
)
sin β K sin β
a v-transform method (Nagle et al., 2012) is applied, upon which Eq. ue ≈ 2 2
= = (23)
2nred b nred a nred a nred
(11) can be transformed into a linear ordinary differential equation.
First, the characteristic root up should be determined for the homo­ Regarding Eq. (23), it shows that the present new analytical solution
geneous equation of Eq. (11), can degenerate into Turner (1993) and Cartwright et al.’s (2006)
analytical solution, i.e., Eq. (6), if the non-linear effect in the For­
Aup + Bu2p − C = 0 (12) chheimer formula is ignored (the Darcy flow scenario applied for the
tidal condition). Accordingly, Turner (1993) or Cartwright et al. (2006)
Eq. (12) is time-independent. Accordingly, solution is only a specific case of the present new analytical solution.
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
− B + B2 + 4AC This study extends Turner (1993) and Cartwright et al.’s (2006) work of
up = (13) the EP movement under the more intensive wave condition with the
2A
non-Darcy flow effect, expanding the applicability of the previous
Then, introducing a new time-dependent variable v, and defining the theoretical solution.
relation between u and v as
4. Results and discussions
1
u = up + (14)
v
4.1. Temporal variation of the EP moving velocity
The time derivative of Eq. (14) is
du 1 dv With respect to Eq. (20), it is noted that the EP moving velocity is
=− 2 (15) time-dependent before it reaches the equilibrium value (Eq. (21)). Fig. 4
dt v dt
shows temporal variation of the EP moving velocity, where the relative
Squaring Eq. (14) gives time is considered here and the time ‘zero’ corresponds to the moment
2up 1 when the EP initially forms. Parameters used in this simulation are
u2 = up 2 + + 2 (16) summarized in Table 1, which all refer to the swash induced ground­
v v
water experiment of Zheng et al. (2022b) and a 0.2 m capillary height
Substituting Eqs. 15 and 16 into Eq. (11), it obtains
was measured from the sand column experiment following Hang and Liu
dv ( ) (2018). A decay parameter of 0.5 after Cartwright et al. (2006) was
− A + 2Bup v − B = 0 (17)
dt adopted in this section. Except for being particularly specified, these
Eq. (17) is a first order linear ordinary differential equation, which parameters are used in the successive calculations. Following Ward
could be solved as (1964) and Moro Filho and Malalasekera (2020), the coefficients a and b

4
M. Yang et al.
Fig. 4. Temporal variation of the EP moving velocity after Eq. (20).
in Eq. (9) could be estimated as
1 0.55
a = , b = √̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
K gK υ
where υ is the kinematic viscosity. K in Eq. (24) is the hydraulic con­
ductivity under the laminar flow condition. a and K can be converted
with respect to Eq. (24). Previous studies for the tide scenario under the
Darcy flow assumption generally assumed the same coefficient of a,
while a zero coefficient b (Cartwright et al., 2006).
Fig. 4 shows that the EP moving velocity starts with an initial zero
value, and subsequently undergoes a rapid increase with time, then
reaches its final equilibrium velocity, i.e., 17 cm/s within a very short
time duration, as also calculated from Eq. (21). Afterwards, the EP ex­
periences a noticeable while consistent movement at a relatively stable
rate. In the present experiment, the equilibrium EP moving velocity is
measured as 16.7 cm/s, which is very much close to the above analytical
value estimated from the present non-Darcy flow model.
After time integral of the velocity curve in Fig. 4, temporal variation
of the EP position during the swash backwash stage could be specified.
The experiment measured and model predicted EP positions are
compared in Fig. 2. Fig. 2 indicates that the predicted EP movement
based on the Darcy flow assumption is far more intensive (with a much
larger equilibrium EP moving velocity of 34.1 cm/s) than the actual
situation. Nevertheless, after considering the non-Darcy flow effect, the
EP moving characteristics exhibit good consistency with the experiment
data in terms of both the magnitude and time-varying features, and the
mean absolute error and the root mean squared error are both calculated
as 1.02 cm/s during 7.0–10.3 s, i.e., the equilibrium EP movement stage.
4.2. Influence of the non-Darcy effect
Regarding the wave induced swash condition with the non-Darcy
effect, the coefficient b (Eq. (24)) is generally larger than zero. Here,
influence of the non-Darcy effect is specified with respect to the coeffi­
cient b under different beach slopes.
Fig. 5 presents the relation between the equilibrium EP moving
Table 1
Parameters used in simulation.
Coefficient a (s/ Coefficient b (s2/ Median sand diameter d50 Beach slope angle β
m) m2) (mm) (rad)
763 4837 0.356 0.1
Coastal Engineering 186 (2023) 104394
velocity ue and the non-Darcy coefficient b. It is found that ue decreases
with the increase of b, while the decreasing rate is rapid initially and
gradually slows down for the large b values, yielding the insensitivity of
the equilibrium EP moving velocity in terms of the large non-Darcy flow
condition. Accordingly, the non-Darcy flow effect leads to a smaller
equilibrium EP moving velocity compared with the Darcy flow case
(b = 0 in Fig. 5). This is because that during the swash backwash, part of
the potential energy transfers to the kinetic energy, while the other part
is dissipated in the seepage flow. Energy loss caused by the non-Darcy
flow effect is much greater than that under the Darcy flow condition,
since non-Darcy flow usually yields the intensive turbulent flow condi­
tions, i.e, bu2D in Eq (9). As a result, the EP moving velocity becomes
relatively small after considering the non-Darcy flow effect.
Fig. 5 also illustrates the variation of the equilibrium EP moving
velocity ue under three representative beach slopes β. It reveals that the
non-Darcy flow effect is particularly pronounced for the large beach
slope situation under which coefficient b can significantly alter the
magnitude of ue . For instance, as for β = 1/10, ue drops about 50% when
b changes from 0 to 10 000. Nevertheless, in the case that β = 1/100, ue
hardly varies even b changes significantly, which means that ue is
insensitive to the non-Darcy flow effect under the small beach slope
condition. Accordingly, the non-Darcy flow effect plays a more signifi­
cant role under the large beach slope condition.
(24)
4.3. Decay parameter
In order to accurately understand the influence of the truncated
capillary fringe along the seepage face, the decay parameter s is intro­
duced to modify the dynamic effective porosity with respect to the
further reduction of the water storage capacity (Cartwright et al., 2006;
Yang et al., 2021). Considering the truncated capillary fringe as well as
the contact angle, the decay parameter should be less than unity. In the
previous study, the decay parameter is suggested as 0.5 by Cartwright
et al. (2006), which however is short of theoretical and practical foun­
dations. To further clarify this, the physical meaning of the decay
Fig. 5. Relation between the equilibrium EP moving velocity and the non-
Darcy coefficient b under three different beach slopes. The vertical dashed
line indicates the b value used in the present study.
Capillary height HΨ Effective porosity n Decay parameter s
(m) (− ) (− )
0.2 0.43 0.5
5
M. Yang et al.
parameter is firstly considered. Under the capillary truncated condition,
the reduced dynamic effective porosity nred is
Vd
nred = (25)
Sa HΨ
where Vd = nVt is the drainage water volume, Vt is the total volume, and
Sa is the cross-section area of the capillary fringe. Eq. (25) indicates the
loss (or gain) of a certain volume of water in the capillary fringe can lead
to a change of the groundwater table at the level of the capillary height.
Under a specific sand beach condition, Vd is a physical quantity that
needs to be further determined.
Taking Eqs. (8) and (25) into account, the decay parameter s is
s=
Vt
(26)
Sa d50
Fig. 6(a) represents a typical capillary fringe state in the swash zone
under the water submerged condition that the groundwater table is just
above the sand surface. As the water gradually drains, a contact angle
forms among sand particles (within the capillary fringe), resulting in a
disproportionate change of the groundwater level as shown in Fig. 6(b)
while the capillary fringe top is still located at the sand surface.
Considering an idealized spherical meniscus condition (Fig. 6(b)), the
capillary diameter is assumed to be equal to the grain diameter d50 , and
the contact angle between the liquid and sediment particles is 0◦ for the
idealized condition under which the meniscus is fully developed with a
half-sphere surface. With respect to Eq. (26), the corresponding decay
( )3
2 π d50
parameter becomes s = d150 3 ( d 2 )2 = 1/3.
π 50
2
However, in reality, the contact angle between the liquid and sedi­
ment particles is not equal to 0◦ , and the meniscus is not necessarily to
have a spherical surface (Zheng et al., 2022b). Here, a more applicable
decay parameter for the truncated capillary fringe is specified by fitting
the measured data with the present analytical solution. Table 2 sum­
marizes the available field observations and laboratory measurements of
the equilibrium EP moving velocity under the wave induced swash ac­
tions, together with the corresponding hydraulic and sediment param­
eters which are needed in the subsequent theoretical estimations of the
EP movement. In Table 2, capillary height of Cartwright et al. (2006)
and Puleo (2009) is calculated based on HΨ = 10σ/ρgd50 (Turner and
Nielsen, 1997), where σ is the surface tension of water.
In order to quantitatively assess the error of the predicted results
under different decay parameters with the present analytical solution,
an error function Diff is introduced following Li et al. (2000), which
stands for the overall average error between the predicted equilibrium
EP moving velocity uep and the measured one uem .
∑( )2
uem − uep
Diff = ∑ ( )2 × 100% (27)
uep
Fig. 6. Profile variation of the meniscus near the beach surface: (a) water submerged condition; (b) water drainage condition.
6
Coastal Engineering 186 (2023) 104394
Eq. (27) helps to optimize the best decay parameter s with respect to
all data listed in Table 2. Fig. 7 shows the relationship between Diff and
the decay parameter s. With the increase of the decay parameter, Diff
decreases rapidly initially, then increases slowly. In Fig. 7, Diff reaches
its minimum value when s = 0.46, under which the prediction error is
only about 0.9%. In comparison, Cartwright et al.’s (2006) analytical
model suggests s = 0.5 (leading to a prediction error of 1.1% as shown in
Fig. 7), which is in fact very close to the abovementioned optimal value.
Fig. 8 shows the predicted and measured equilibrium EP moving
velocity with different decay parameters, including the aforementioned
idealized (optimal) value s = 0.33 (0.46). The diagonal line represents
the perfect agreement between the predicted and the measured results.
In general, when the measured EP moving velocity is small, deviations
among the predicted results from different s values are small, whereas
for the large measured EP moving velocity, such deviations become
obvious. In addition, it can be seen that when s > 0.46 (< 0.46), the
predicted values generally underestimate (overestimate) the measured
data, whereas for s = 0.46, all the predicted values match well with the
experiment data, showing a good accuracy. This indicates that if the
decay parameter of the dynamic effective porosity is not taken into ac­
count (s = 1), the predicted equilibrium EP moving velocity is much
smaller than the experimental values, and a suitable decay parameter
value could significantly improve the prediction results.
5. Conclusions
Based on the experimental observation and considering the non-
Darcy flow effect, a new analytical solution for estimating the exit
point (EP hereafter) movement during the backwash stage under the
wave induced swash condition is derived using the v-transform method.
The present analytical solution shows that the EP moving velocity in­
creases rapidly with time initially, and quickly reaches its final equi­
librium velocity, which is also confirmed from the experimental
measured data. Regarding the non-Darcy flow effect, it is found that the
equilibrium EP moving velocity decreases with the increase of coeffi­
cient b, while being insensitivity under the strong non-Darcy conditions
(for large b values). The non-Darcy flow effect is pronounced for the
large beach slope situation under which coefficient b can significantly
alter the magnitude of equilibrium EP moving velocity. In addition, with
respect to the available experimental data and the present analytical
solution, a more reasonable decay parameter with clear physical inter­
pretation is determined to consider the further reduction of the dynamic
effective porosity in terms of the truncated capillary fringe, and its
optimal value is found to be 0.46.
Despite the improvement in estimating the EP movement from the
present analytical model after considering the non-Darcy flow effect,
there are still some limitations. Here, only homogeneous beach condi­
tions with spatially uniform sand properties, e.g., the hydraulic con­
ductivity and the effective porosity, are considered, while these
properties could vary spatially in the in-situ sand beach (Horn, 2006;
M. Yang et al. Coastal Engineering 186 (2023) 104394

Table 2
Equilibrium EP moving velocity measured in different field and experiment studies under the wave actions, as well as the corresponding hydraulic and sediment
parameters.
References Parameters

Median sand diameter d50 Beach slope angle β Hydraulic conductivity K Effective porosity n Capillary height HΨ Equilibrium velocity ue
(mm) (rad) (m/s) (− ) (m) (m/s)

Cartwright et al. 0.280 0.019 0.0004 0.35 0.26 0.055

(2006)
Puleo (2009) 0.440 0.088 0.0010 0.30 0.17 0.145
Puleo (2009) 0.440 0.069 0.0010 0.30 0.17 0.107
Zheng et al. (2022b) 0.356 0.100 0.0013 0.43 0.20 0.167

Writing-Original Draft. Y. Z.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Valida­

tion, Investigation, H. L.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation,
Investigation, Writing-Reviewing and Editing, Supervision, Funding
Acquisition and Project Administration.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial

interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.

Data availability

Data will be made available on request.

Acknowledgments

This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science

Foundation of China (No. 52271292, 52071288).

Fig. 7. Relationship between Diff and the decay parameter s.

References

Fig. 8. Predicted and measured equilibrium EP moving velocity with different
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Yang et al., 2022b). Influence of the heterogeneous sand properties on
the EP movement and the corresponding coastal groundwater hydro­
dynamics should be considered in the future study.
Author credit statement
M. Y.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Investigation,
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