The 1st International Conference on Water Resources and Coastal Engineering

INVESTIGATING SHIP WAKE GENERATION BY DIFFERENT VESSEL

TYPES IN SHALLOW WATERS USING XBEACH
Pui Yee Wong1, Chin Liat Shue2, and Seng Keat Ooi3,*
1
Tropical Marine Science Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore; E-mail: puiyeewong@[Link]
2
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, National University of Singapore,
Singapore; E-mail: scliat88@[Link]
3
Tropical Marine Science Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore; E-mail: [Link]@[Link]

Abstract - Potential impacts relating to passing ships sources of coastal problems. The present study
are becoming more important due to the growing intensity investigates the impact of ship wakes generated by
of vessel traffic in ports and harbours. The effects of ship different vessel types in confined, shallow waters using a
traffic on hydrodynamics in coastal environments are numerical modelling software, XBeach. The simulation
generally insignificant in areas influenced by natural results of two ship types travelling in an area with
wave energy, but can become critical in calm water areas uniform depth and along a sloping bank with a certain
[1]. Ship wakes can potentially cause adverse impacts constant speed are presented. Based on all simulations,
such as shoreline erosion and increased suspended conclusions are presented about the potential of using
sediments, and subsequently impacting environmentally XBeach to evaluate ship wakes by investigating the
sensitive areas [2]. In this study, we evaluate the impact maximum wave heights in comparison with Froude
of ship wakes generated by two different vessel types in numbers.
calm, shallow (coastal) waters using a numerical
modelling software, XBeach. XBeach simulates ship 2. Ship wakes
wakes by representing the moving vessel using a pressure
2.1. Ship wakes as a coastal environment issue
head along the projected ship track. The moving pressure
head generates waves which propagate through the model The effects of ship traffic on hydrodynamics in coastal
domain. The simulation results from XBeach showed that environments is considered to be generally insignificant
ship wake signatures of different ship types can be in areas influenced by natural wave energy [2], however
distinctively different at various distances away from the the effects can become critical in confined, calmer, and
ship track and when travelling over different bathymetry. shallower areas such as islands, lagoons, estuaries,
The study shows the potential of using XBeach to wetlands or low-energy coasts [5-8].
evaluate vessel wake impact in shallow coastal areas. A number of studies which looked into the potential
Key words - Ship wakes; maximum wave height; impact of ship waves, largely focus on high speed crafts
moving pressure field; shallow coastal area; Froude or ferries, as these vessels tend to operate with trans-
number critical and super-critical speeds, which can potentially
cause adverse impacts to shorelines in confined
waterways and environmentally sensitive areas [1, 6, 7, 9-
1. Introduction 12]. Wakes generated from vessels travelling at these
With the ever-increasing intensity of vessel traffic in speeds can be large and with the combined effects of
ports and harbours, potential impacts relating to passing wave reflection, refraction and shoaling, these wakes can
ships are becoming more and more important [3]. In many lead to shoreline erosion, changes in shoreline and
parts of the world, navigation channels are widened and beaches, increased sediment resuspension, potentially
deepened to accommodate larger vessels. Moreover, impacting ecology and damaging coastal [7].
newer ships are designed and equipped with more Such issues and concerns have been studied in many
powerful engines. It may not be noticeable, but in fact, countries and sites around the world, such as New
these factors bring about increasing waves and currents in Zealand [1, 7], Denmark [7], The Netherlands [4] and
our channels and ports, which can lead to potential more recently, Italy [13, 14].
impacts with regards to navigational safety, erosion and
Parnell, McDonald and Burke [1] found that the
use of recreational areas and beaches [4]. This becomes
effects of ship wakes generated from high speed crafts in
extremely critical in areas sheltered from strong waters,
Marlborough Sound in New Zealand can be experienced
possibly due to dissipation of the high wave energy from
in beaches much further away from the ship tracks. The
nearby islands, reefs and shallow waters. In such areas,
study also found that the beaches in Marlborough Sound
the ship induced waves and currents could provide the
have not returned to the conditions prior to the
forces that stir up sediment and contribute to the transport
introduction of the high speed crafts, thus highlighted that
of sediment.
ship wakes can cause significant shoreline changes. In the
This introduces a new perspective on the possible study done by Osborne, MacDonald and Parkinson [15],
 Pui Yee Wong, Chin Liat Shue, and Seng Keat Ooi 2
field measurements in Rich Passage, Washington, showed water wave speed 𝑔ℎ. This is where the depth Froude
that currents were modified by the presence of ship number comes into the picture.
wakes, producing an offshore directed flow. Ship wakes
Depth Froude number Fh is generally classified into
caused sand to resuspend in the nearshore and this
three categories: subcritical, critical or trans-critical and
subsequently led to both alongshore and offshore
supercritical (Fig. 1).
transport of sand.
Sediment transport impacts relating to ship wakes can
also lead to large scale economic impacts. In 2015,
Rapaglia et al. [13] found that ship wakes from
commercial vessels in the Italy’s Venice Lagoon led to
large amount of sediment resuspension that is equivalent
to 1.2 x 106 metric tons of sediment per year.

2.2. Ship wake/wave regimes

2.2.1. Introduction to ship wakes
Ship waves/wakes, are produced from the
displacement of water due to the moving hull of the ship. Fig. 1: Classification of depth Froude numbers [22].
This results in a pressure gradient that generates a set of The wave regime produced by most conventional
waves. ships are in the subcritical wave regime. However, the
Ship waves were studied by Froude in 1877 [16] and reason for high speed crafts being the source of coastal
subsequently by Lord Kelvin [17]. The wake pattern problems is that these vessels, as the name suggests,
produced by a ship travelling in deep water is named after travel at the much higher speed as compared to
Lord Kelvin and consists of waves of various lengths and conventional ships. As the ship increases speed or travels
speed. There are two main components in a wave pattern: into shallower waters (water depth decreases), the depth
divergent and transverse waves. The forward movement Froude number increases. This increases the wave height
of the bow of a ship generates divergent waves, which as well as the interaction of the waves with the seabed.
consist of a set of symmetrical short waves, travelling at Several studies have shown that the largest wave
slower speeds at an angle to the ship’s track. The stern of height can be seen when depth Froude number is
a ship creates transverse waves, which are the longest and approximately 1, which is the critical or trans-critical
fastest waves which travel at the same speed and direction wave regime (Fig. 2) [12, 20].
as the ship [18-20].
2.2.2. Froude numbers
The characteristics of waves generated by a steadily
moving ship in finite water depth can be classified by two
dimensionless parameters, namely the length Froude
number FL defined by:
𝑈
𝐹 = (1)
𝑔𝐿
and the depth Froude number Fh defined by:
𝑈
𝐹 = (2) Fig. 2: Relationship between depth Froude number and
𝑔ℎ measured maximum wave height [12].
where U is the speed of the ship, Lw is the length of the The energy in the wave group that travels at the same
waterline of the ship, g is acceleration due to gravity and speed as the vessel continuously builds up due to the
h is the water depth. merging of the divergent and transverse waves at an angle
a. Length Froude number approaching 90° to the ship track. Therefore, these waves
can reach nearby shorelines in a short period of time [7,
Studies and regulatory bodies have evaluated that at a
12].
length Froude number of approximately 0.5, maximum
wave resistance, and subsequently high waves occurs. Torsvik [22] noted that wave generation by high speed
This is known as the “hump speed” [7, 12, 21]. vessels in coastal waters is a function of both length and
depth Froude numbers and Whittaker [23] evaluated that
b. Depth Froude number
the largest wave wash generation potentially occurs when
In shallow waters, the wave condition is largely a ship operates at the “hump speed” (typically between FL
dependent on the maximum speed a wave can travel in a = 0.4 and 0.6) and the critical depth Froude number Fh
given depth of water h, which is known as the shallow simultaneously.
 The 1st International Conference on Water Resources and Coastal Engineering
3. Methods and modelling
3.1. Numerical model: XBeach
XBeach is an open-source numerical model developed
with major funding from the US Army Corps of
Engineers, Rijkswaterstaat and the EU, supported by a
consortium of UNESCO-IHE, Deltares (formerly
WL|Delft Hydraulics), Delft University of Technology
and the University of Miami. It was originally developed
to simulate hydrodynamic and morphodynamic processes
and impacts on sandy coasts with a domain size of
kilometres and on the time scale of storms. The model has
Fig. 3: Illustration of model domains.
been validated with numerous analytical, laboratory and
field test cases using a standard set of parameter settings The focus of this study is to analyse the extent of the
[24]. waves purely generated from ship movement in calm
waters with no or minimal influence from natural wave
The present study uses the non-hydrostatic mode in
energy. Therefore, wave boundary conditions are not
XBeach, which is a more complete model. This mode
utilised in the simulations. The water level changes that
solves all processes including short wave motions, but
would be seen in the model results would be solely from
with more computational demand. A combination of the
the “induced moving pressure field” from the simulated
non-linear shallow water equations with a pressure
ships.
correction term is applied, allowing to model the
propagation and decay of individual waves. In the non-
hydrostatic mode, ship-induced waves can be simulated as 3.3. Ships
well. Ships of various shapes and sizes travel in ports and
The approach in simulating ship-induced waves in harbours daily. In this study, two variants of ships are
XBeach is to represent a moving vessel by a moving being studied; fast craft ferries and container vessels.
pressure head along a ship track in the model domain. The Average values of ship dimensions and travelling speeds
shape and depth of a ship hull is introduced into the were computed and applied to represent these ships.
model through a local increase in atmospheric pressure, Table 1: Properties of selected ship types.
which causes a depression in water level equivalent to the
Fast Craft Ferry Container Vessel
displacement of the ship. The ship is defined on a separate
grid, where the ship draft is specified per grid point. For Length (m) 37.5 295
each computational time step, the ship draft is transferred Breadth (m) 7 32.3
from the ship grid to the global grid, while keeping the
volume of the ship constant. Following the moving Draught (m) 2.2 11.5
pressure head along the ship track, waves are generated Average (m/s) 12 5
and propagate through the global domain. This method speed (knots) 24 10
representing ship motion with moving pressure fields has
also been used in several other studies [25, 26]. WaveMaster Bani Yas

Example
3.2. Model schematisation
A model domain of 4000 m by 1000 m with a
resolution of 2.5 m by 2.5 m was used for the study. A
sensitivity test indicated that an increase in resolution In the model simulations, the ships were set to travel
showed no significant differences at distances away from along the centreline of the model domain (along y = 500
the ship track, indicating that the applied resolution is m), from left to right, with a starting point of (200, 500).
appropriate. Two cases of bathymetry were studied: The ships were allowed to slowly accelerate from 0 m/s to
uniform depth of 20 m to represent the typical open, their designated travelling speeds to allow a stable and
shallow waters and one with a sloped bank of 1:16.67 smooth spin up period. This is to prevent abrupt changes
covering 250 m at the landward boundary to represent a in water level due to the ship, which may result in
typical coastline (Fig. 3). unrealistic wave patterns.
 Pui Yee Wong, Chin Liat Shue, and Seng Keat Ooi 4
4. Results and analysis
4.1. Ship wake signatures by different ship types
Model simulations for both the fast craft ferry and
container vessel were carried out in both model domains
(uniform depth and sloped bank). Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 shows
the extent of the ship wakes generated by the moving fast
craft ferry and the container vessel respectively, at the
start, 4th and 7th minute for a uniform depth domain.

Fig. 6: Extracted water level fluctuations from ship wakes

generated by fast craft ferry and container vessel at the 7 th min.
To investigate further, the length and depth Froude
numbers were calculated. For the container vessel
simulated in this study, the FL and Fh values were
calculated to be 0.09 and 0.36 respectively. The F L value
is far below the criteria of “hump speeds” and the Fh
value indicates that the ship wakes generated by the
container vessel falls within the subcritical wave regime.
For the fast craft ferry simulated, the FL and Fh values
were calculated to be 0.63 and 0.86 respectively. The
Fig. 4: 2D plots showing the extent of ship wakes generated computed FL value for the fast craft ferry falls within the
by fast craft ferry in uniform depth domain. criteria of “hump speeds” and the Fh value indicates that
the wave regime produced is in the critical or trans-
critical wave regime.
Based on the known characteristics of the ship wakes
(derived from calculating the Froude numbers and
literature) generated by both simulated vessels, it was
observed from the simulation results that the model is
able to produce comparable ship wake signatures, that is,
smaller ship wakes for the container vessel and larger ship
wakes for the fast craft ferry. Hence, the model is able to
reproduce different ship wake signatures that would be
required to assess the impact of ship wakes in coastal
area.

4.2. Ship wake signatures due to different bathymetry

A comparison of the ship wake signatures for the two
types of bathymetry (uniform depth and sloped bank) for
Fig. 5: 2D plots showing the extent of ship wakes generated both vessel types was carried out. The simulation results
by container vessel in uniform depth domain. for the fast craft ferry indicated that wave shoaling is
A comparison of the water level extracted across a evident on the sloped bank. The extracted maximum wave
profile 50 m away from the ship track (y = 550 m) in the heights at various distances away from the ship track were
model domain for both ship types clearly showed that the similar for both the uniform depth and sloped bank cases
fast craft ferry generates much larger ship wakes, as up to the foot of the sloped bank. For distances after the
compared to the container vessel (Fig. 6). The results also start of the sloped bank, the extracted maximum wave
confirmed that larger ship wakes generated by the fast heights showed a slight increase (Table 2). Fig. 7 shows
craft ferry were also detected at further distances away the comparison of water level from the case with uniform
from the ship track, as shown by the maximum wave depth and that with sloped bank at 350 m away from the
heights at the various distances (Table 2). ship track (i.e. on the sloped bank). At a distance of 350
m away from the ship track, the case with the sloped bank
has a shallower depth as compared to that for the uniform
depth. Hence, it is expected that the maximum wave
height for the sloped bank case should be higher than that
 The 1st International Conference on Water Resources and Coastal Engineering
for the uniform depth case at that distance. Based on these 5. Conclusion
results, it can be seen that wave shoaling effects can be In the present study, ship wake signatures generated
reproduced, which is critical for assessing vessel wake by two different vessel types, namely the fast craft ferry
impacts in typical coastal zones. and container vessel, in calm and shallow waters were
No significant wave shoaling effects were observed evaluated using XBeach. This was carried out by
for the case with the container vessel as the maximum representing the moving vessel using a pressure head
wave heights are relatively small (less than 0.1 m) at along the projected ship track. The selected vessel types
distances away from the ship track where the sloped bank were studied in a case of uniform depth and a case with a
is located. sloped bank.
The simulation results from XBeach showed that
distinctively different ship wake signatures of various
ship types when travelling over varying bathymetry can
be produced. The results showed close correlation to the
expected range of maximum wave heights based on the
various known wake characteristics derived from the
Froude numbers and based on the expected wave shoaling
processes.
Therefore, this study shows the potential of using
XBeach to evaluate vessel wake impact from various ship
types in shallow coastal areas. Moving forward, the
methodology presented in this study can then be applied
to realistic situations to evaluate and quantify the potential
impact from ship wakes in shallow coastal areas, ports
and harbours, in particular, for areas with complex
bathymetry and varying distances from the ship track to
the coast.

Acknowledgements
This study is funded by the National Research Foundation
(Singapore) through the Marine Science R&D Programme
(MSRDP-P04: R347-000-265-281).

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The 1st International Conference on Water Resources and Coastal Engineering

Author information
Ms. Pui Yee Wong
- Master of Science (Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources Management); Bachelor of Engineering
(Environmental Engineering), Honours; both at National University of Singapore; over 5 years of
experience in environmental consulting and research, in particular Environmental Monitoring and
Management Plans (EMMPs), Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and similar environmental
studies;
- Research Assistant, Ecological Monitoring, Informatics and Dynamics (EMID) Research Group, Tropical
Marine Science Institute (TMSI), National University of Singapore;
- Current primary research area in is coastal hydrodynamics and coastal/environmental modelling,
monitoring and assessment, relating to EIAs. Covering topics such as sediment transport, water quality and
marine ecology;
- Phone number: (+65) 6601 5914
Mr. Chin Liat Shue
- Master of Science (Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources Management) from National University of
Singapore; Bachelor of Engineering (Environmental Engineering), Honours from Nanyang Technological
University; over 5 years of experience in managing coastal development projects and environmental studies
such as Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs);
- Senior Engineer / Project Manager, Coastal Engineering Section, Statutory Board of the Singapore
Government
- Current primary research area in is coastal hydrodynamics and coastal/environmental modelling, monitoring
and assessment, relating to EIAs. Covering topics such as sediment transport, water quality and marine
ecology.
Dr. Seng Keat Ooi
- PhD from University of Iowa on the detailed physics of gravity currents; MSc from the University of Iowa;
over 17 years of experience in coastal hydrodynamics, ship hydrodynamics, environmental flows, data-
model integrations and project management;
- Senior Research Fellow, Head of Ecological Monitoring, Informatics and Dynamics (EMID) Research
Group, Tropical Marine Science Institute (TMSI), National University of Singapore;
- Current primary research area is applied research in physical and numerical modelling of environmental
flows in the tropical region; Primarily interested in the impact of the changing climate and rapidly
changing built-environment on water resources issues especially flows, water quality and ecology;
- Phone number: (+65) 6516 3591