Simultaneous field measurements of wave and current parameters in the surf zone and the resulting longshore transport of sand have been made on two beaches under a variety of conditions. The direction and flux of wave energy was measured from an array of digital wave sensors placed in and near the surf zone. Quantitative measurements of the longshore sand transport rate were obtained from the time history of the center of gravity of sand tracer. The measurements have been used to test two models for the prediction of the longshore transport rate of sand. The first model gives the immersed weight longshore transport rate of sand, Il, as proportional to the longshore component of wave energy flux (power), Il = K(ECn)b sin αb cos αb, where E is the energy density, Cn is the wave group velocity, and αb is the breaker angle. The second model assumes that the waves provide the power to move and support the sand and that the superimposed longshore current 〈νl〉 provides a longshore component that results in the longshore transport of sand according to the relationship Il = K′ (ECn)b cos αb〈νl〉/um, where um is the magnitude of the maximum horizontal component of orbital velocity near the bottom under the breaking wave, assumed to be proportional to the rate of energy dissipation by friction on the beach bed. The measurements show that both models successfully predict the sand transport rate, with values of the dimensionless coefficients K = 0.77 and K′ = 0.28. The coherence of the models implies that they are interrelated, their common solution giving the relation as 〈νl〉 = K″ um sin αb, where K″ is a dimensionless constant equal to 2.7. This relation can be obtained directly by equating the longshore current and the longshore component of the momentum flux (radiation stress) of the breaking waves. Thus, the coherence of the models appears to be based on the generation of the longshore currents by the longshore radiation stress. The models will not be equivalent if 〈νl〉 owes its origin to some other generating mechanism such as tides or winds.

Genetically, beach cusps are of at least two types: those linked with incident waves which are surging and mostly reflected (reflective systems) and those generated on beaches where wave breaking and nearshore circulation cells are important (dissipative systems). The spacings of some cusps formed under reflective wave conditions both in the laboratory and in certain selected natural situations are shown to be consistent with models hypothesizing formation by either (1) subharmonic edge waves (period twice that of the incident waves) of zero mode number or (2) synchronous (period equal to that of incident waves) edge waves of low mode. Experiments show that visible subharmonic edge wave generation occurs on nonerodable plane laboratory beaches only when the incident waves are strongly reflected at the beach, and this observation is quantified. Edge wave resonance theory and experiments suggest that synchronous potential edge wave generation can also occur on reflective beaches and is a higher‐order, weaker resonance than the subharmonic type. In dissipative systems, modes of longshore periodic motion other than potential edge waves may be important in controlling the longshore scale of circulation cells and beach morphologies. On reflective plane laboratory beaches, initially large subharmonic edge waves rear‐rage sand tracers into shapes which resemble natural beach cusps, but the edge wave amplitudes decrease as the cusps grow. Cusp growth is thus limited by negative feedback from the cusps to the edge wave excitation process. Small edge waves can form longshore periodic morphologies by providing destabilizing perturbations on a berm properly located in the swash zone. In this case the retreating incident wave surge is channelized into breeches in the berm caused by the edge waves, and there is an initially positive feedback from the topography to longshore periodic perturbations.

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‘Set‐down’ and set‐up, the negative and positive changes in mean water level due to the presence of a train of surface waves, was measured in a wave channel. Well outside the break point the experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical relationship determined by Longuet‐Higgins and Stewart. Near the break point, where the wave height is greater than predicted by first‐order wave theory, the measured ‘set‐down’ was consistently less than theory would predict from the deep water wave height. Inside the break point the bore height was found to be a linear function of the mean water depth. In this region, the gradient of the set‐up, , was related to the beach slope tan β and the mean ratio of wave height to water depth by the equation .

The rapid shearing of a mixture of cohesionless glass spheres and air or water was studied in an annular, parallel-plate shear cell designed after Savage (1978). Two types of flow were observed. In the first type of flow the entire mass of the granular material was mobilized. At high shear rates the shear and normal stresses were found to be quadratically dependent upon the mean shear rate (at constant volume concentration), in general agreement with the observations of Bagnold (1954) and Savage & Sayed (1984), and the ‘kinetic’ theory of Jenkins & Savage (1983). The stresses were found to be weakly dependent on the volume concentration up to approximately 0.5, and strongly dependent above this concentration. For flows in which water was the interstitial fluid, the ratio of the shear stress to the normal stress was slightly higher (than in air), and the stresses at lower shear rates were found to be more nearly linearly related to the shear rate. It is suggested that these effects are contributed to by the viscous dampening of grain motions by the water. The second type of flow was distinguished by the existence of an internal boundary above which the granular material deformed rapidly, but below which the granular material remained rigidly locked in place. The thickness of the shearing layer was measured to be between 5 and 15 grain diameters. The stress ratio at the bottom of the shearing layer was found to be nearly constant, suggesting the internal boundary is a consequence of the immersed weight of the shearing grains, and may be described by a Coulomb yield criterion. A scaled concentration is proposed to compare similar data obtained using different-sized materials or different apparatus. An intercomparison of the two types of flow studied, along with a comparison between the present experiments and those of Bagnold (1954) and Savage & Sayed (1984), suggests that the nature of the boundaries can have a significant effect upon the dynamics of the entire flow.