An extension of the Boussinesq equations to deep water - A case study

In this work the range of validity of the Boussinesq equations is analyzed and an extension of the Boussinesq equations to deep water is proposed. In order to validate the approximation used the model was applied to a zone located in the Canary isles for which a detailed study in scale model, done by the National Laboratory of Civil Engineering of Lisbon, is available. This enabled the comparison of results of both physical and numerical models. The model was then applied to simulate the wave field in the port of Funchal (Madeira Isle). The good agreement obtained between the model results and the available information for both cases led us to the conclusion that this approximation is a valuable tool to simulate the propagation of waves from deep to shallow water using the Boussinesq equations.