The transport of plastic particles from inland sources to the oceans garbage patches occurs trough coastal regions where the transport processes depend highly on wave‐induced motions. In this study, experimental measurements of the plastic particles wave‐induced Lagrangian drift in intermediate water depth are presented investigating the influence of the wave conditions, particle size and density on the motion of relatively large plastic particles. A large influence of the particle density is observed causing particles to float or sink for relative densities lower and larger than water respectively. The measured net drift of the floating particles correlates well with theoretical solutions for particle Stokes drift, where the net drift is proportional to the square of the wave steepness. Floating particles remain at the free water surface because of buoyancy and no evidence of any other influence of particle inertia on the net drift is observed. Nonfloating particles move close to the bed with lower velocity magnitudes than the floating particles’ motion at the free surface. The drift of nonfloating particles reduces with decreasing wave number, and therefore wave steepness.

中文翻译：

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波对塑料颗粒的运动的实验室测量：波周期，塑料尺寸和塑料密度的影响

塑料颗粒从内陆源到海洋垃圾场的运输是通过沿海地区进行的，沿海地区的运输过程高度依赖于波浪引起的运动。在这项研究中，提出了在中等水深中塑料颗粒波引起的拉格朗日漂移的实验测量，以研究波浪条件，颗粒大小和密度对较大塑料颗粒运动的影响。观察到较大的颗粒密度影响，导致相对于水分别低于或大于水的相对密度，颗粒漂浮或下沉。测得的漂浮颗粒的净漂移与颗粒斯托克斯漂移的理论解有很好的相关性，其中斯托克斯漂移的净漂移与波陡度的平方成比例。由于浮力，漂浮的颗粒保留在自由水表面，并且没有观察到颗粒惯性对净漂移有任何其他影响的迹象。非漂浮粒子以比漂浮粒子在自由表面上的运动更低的速度移动到床附近。非漂浮粒子的漂移随着波数的减少而减小，因此波的陡度减小。