DOI: 10.17603/ds2-2b78-qc48
title: Unbroken Wave
title: in Probabilistic Assessment of Tsunami Forces on Coastal Structures

description: In the last decade, tsunamis have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars in damage to coastal communities around the world. While a major tsunami has not impacted the United States in some time, there is significant risk to the Pacific Coast and recent storm surge events have shown a potential for damage to domestic infrastructure similar to what was seen in East Asia and the Pacific. Interest in tsunami load predictions for structural design has grown, but it is difficult to develop models that accurately predict the tsunami load response of an individual structure, much less the tsunami risk for multiple structures within a specific region. The framework presented here is designed to improve the safety and sustainability of coastal structures and, consequently, improve tsunami hazard assessments, post-event response, and recovery efforts. Ultimately, this work will result in safer communities through increased public awareness of the risks posed by these types of hazards and enhanced tools to develop resilient infrastructure systems. 

Increased computing power has prompted the development of novel numerical approaches to tsunami-structure interaction modeling tailored to capture specific physical phenomena with high-levels of resolution and accuracy, including coupled multiphysics models to simulate complex system interactions. If community-specific assessments of structural vulnerabilities are to be achieved, they must be based on a fundamental understanding of these interactions and an ability to efficiently model the associated physical processes in a probabilistic framework that accounts for the uncertain nature of these events. The primary goals of this research project are to establish an open-source modeling framework where 3D computational fluid dynamics solvers can be used efficiently to inform the development of load-prediction capabilities for existing, widely used inundation models and to develop a probabilistic framework for predicting the fluid loading and structural response of coastal structures at a community level. The research team will validate this framework against existing experimental data, assess the effects of bathymetry and community layout on flow, refine the models to include force predictions, and extend probabilistic tsunami hazard assessment methods to include fluid loading criteria. This work will provide users both the framework and the software tools necessary to develop site-specific numerical models to increase the safety and sustainability of coastal structure by improving our understanding of the probabilistic risk posed by tsunami events on these structures.
description: An error function piston displacement history was used to generate a smooth, solitary-like wave that broke past the test structure. The wave period was 18 s, the still water depth was 2.0 m, and the error function scale factor was 360 (see wmdisp.txt for the wavemaker displacement history). This wave type and its generation is described in "Influence of Finite-Length Seawalls for Tsunami Loading on Coastal Structures" by Thomas, S. and D. T. Cox (see https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29WW.1943-5460.0000125).