SMS:CMS

The Coastal Modeling System

The Coastal Modeling System (CMS) has been a research and development area of The Coastal Inlets Research Program (CIRP) at the United States Army Corps of Engineers – Engineering Research and Development Center (USACE-ERDC), Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory (CHL) since 2006. It was build from a group of numerical models that have been under development since 2002. Information on the CIRP and publication on the CMS can be found at [1]

The system is a coordinated system of major multidimensional numerical models integrated to simulate waves, currents, water level, sediment transport, and morphology change in the coastal zone. Emphasis is on navigation channel performance and sediment exchanges between the inlet and adjacent beaches in the coastal zone. The CMS has been verified with field and laboratory data.

System Components

• CMS-Flow
• CMS-Wave

Steering

In order to combine the capabilities of the two main numeric engines of flow and waves, information must be passed from one engine to the other. In the case of CMS-Flow, this means reading in wave data from CMS-Wave. Information passed to CMS-Flow includes reading radiation stress gradients that directly impact currents (wave driven currents) and height fields, wave directions and breaking data which enter into the sediment transport rate formulations. In the case of CMS-Wave, the option exists to read in currents and simulate their transformation by the current. For either situation, the data fields must be interpolated onto the native domain (interpolate wave data onto the flow grid and/or flow data onto the wave grid).

This may be done interactively using the tools in SMS. However, it is much more efficient to read or define simulations for both engines, and invoke the steering module from the Data menu. This tool runs the engines separately, but interpolates the output and passes it to the other engine automatically.

External Links:

• CIRP Wiki – online help database for CIRP information/publications and CMS modeling software [2]
• US Army Engineer Research and Development Center – Ongoing Research [3]
• Presentations
  • Coastal Modeling System (CMS) for Integrated Calculation of Waves, Flow, Sediment Transport, and Morphology Change [4]
  • Introduction to CMS-Wave [5]
  • Additional information on CMS-Flow capabilities [6]
  • CMS-Wave Demonstrations to Louisiana (Levees & Muddy coast) [7]
  • Future of the CMS [8]