Tsunami Wave Basin (TWB) Experiment Notebook

Tsunami Wave Basin (TWB) Experiment Notebook

College of Engineering, Oregon State University

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Project Northstar Renewal
	Start: 19-May-2008 Description:
Project Tsunami Kinematics
	Principal Investigator: Tom Baldock Co-Principal Investigator: Dan Cox Start: 14-Apr-2008 Description: This project aims to provide an extensive data set of the cross-shore variation in flow kinematics during non-breaking and breaking wave run-up in the OSU tsunami wave basin. The experimental setup includes 2 wave gauges and 4 acoustic wave sensors, 4 ADV current meters and video. The data will be used to test new analytical solutions for bore run-up, numerical models for tsunami run-up and to provide data on turbulence generation and advection in the nearshore and run-up zone.
Project Tsunamos2
	Start: 06-Dec-2007 Description: Phase II of TSUNAMOS will make use of a longshore-variable sloping beach. This beach can be described as a triangular reef, where the largest shallow water extent (shelf) exists along the centerline of the tank, and linearly tapers to zero at the basin side wall. The purpose of this beach is to create a 3D, bathymetry-forced breaking pattern. A single solitary wave and depth condition will be investigated. Numerous ADV’s will be used, with the goal of extracting turbulence (stress) information; many realizations with ADV’s in the same location are needed. The free surface elevation will be mapped with approximately 170 resistance wave gage locations. Runup will be recorded with video cameras. Additionally, dye studies will provide information on the mixing and transport by the solitary wave.
Project House Impact
	Principal Investigator: John van de Lindt Start: 14-Nov-2007 Description: This payload project will provide one-of-a-kind data for residential structures – specifically: structural engineering design, system analysis, coastal risk assessment, and decision-making in support of public policy within the NEES data repository. It is envisioned that the following areas will be directly impacted by the results of this payload project: (1) information on fluid impact loads as a function of different wave heights and ground slopes on residential structures enabling the development of dimensionless charts for use by designers/planners and to facilitate innovative construction techniques in coastal regions; (2) an understanding of the load transfer mechanism and uplift forces on residential structures during wave and surge loading, both of which are not understood currently, (3) the relationship of scale model pressure to full-scale prototype damage through existing methods, formulations, and minimal assembly testing following the wave basin tests, and (4) information for designers, innovators, and public policy and decision-makers via the NEES data repository at the SDSC.
Project Bridge Impact
	Principal Investigator: Dan Cox Start: 01-Nov-2007 Description: Analysis of regular and random waves impacting a 1:5 scale model of a highway bridge superstructure.
Project NEES HI REEF
	Principal Investigator: Ian Robertson Co-Principal Investigator: Julie Young, Kwok Fai Cheung, H. Ronald Riggs, Geno Pawlak Start: 06-Jun-2007 Description: The overall objective of this NSF-Funded project, “Performance Based Tsunami Engineering”? is to simulate the effects of tsunami (solitary) waves on the sea-beds and the structures near the coastal lines. Phase 1, spanning from June 4th 2007 to August 3rd 2007, was conducted by Prof. Julie Young’s group. The run-up and drawdown of solitary and cnoidal waves on sandy beaches with varying slopes were studied. A wide range of wave heights were tested: 10cm, 30cm, 50cm, and 60cm, corresponding to different sizes and characteristics of tsunami waves. This set of experiments featured a movable bed and were highly instrumented. In particular, bed-surveys and underwater cameras were deployed to study the detailed physics of bed scour and sediment transport. The experiments were able to keep most of the physical effects of the real waves, thereby minimizing the scale effects. These experimental results are very important for the study of tsunami wave and storm surges. They are valuable resource for the researcher in the coastal engineering community to validate their numerical simulations and to verify the theoretical studies. The second phase of NEES HIreef from August 13th to December 14th 2007 focuses on the studies of solitary and cnoidal waves breaking over fixed beds and their impacts on coastal structures. The initial set of experiments includes studies on a straight slope as a reference case for previous and upcoming tests. Additional bed profiles will show the effect of reef roughness on wave breaking and will provide an important case for comparison. The majority of destructive tsunamis over the last decades affected tropical islands in the Pacific and Indian Ocean. Most of those islands are sheltered by fringing reefs. Therefore later experiments use reef shaped beds with 1/5, 1/10, and 1/15 slopes to obtain detailed data of wave breaking and bore propagation and their impact on coastal structures. A surface laser profiler and high speed cameras will give further insight into the complicated wave breaking mechanisms. The results will advance numerical modeling efforts of coastal communities in terms of inundation mapping and hazard assessment.
Project Seaside
	Principal Investigator: Dan Cox Start: 01-Jun-2007 Description: This project models tsunami inundation for an idealized coastal community. The waterfront is approximately 8 city blocks wide by 4 blocks deep with macro-roughness consisting of seawall, large commercial hotels and residential buildings modeled at 1:50 scale. A LIDAR survey provides detailed information on the location of the macro-roughness and bathymetry. The measurements consist primarily of co-located free surface and velocity measurements throughout the inundation region for an idealized tsunami of approximately 10 m offshore height. Data are used to estimate the spatial distribution of momentum flux as it related to the macro-roughness and to evaluate two numerical models COULWAVE (Lynett et al., 2002) and STOC-IC (Takashi and Honda, 2007). The data and comparisons to the numerical models are reported in Cox et al. (2008). This project is supported by Oregon Sea Grant.
Project Tsunamos
	Principal Investigator: Patrick Lynett Co-Principal Investigator: Philip Liu Start: 09-Mar-2007 Description: Phase 1 of the TSUNAMOS experimental plan. The purpose of this set of experiments is to obtain a detailed and dense set of free surface and velocity measurements for 3D tsunami (long wave) breaking. Breaking will be induced through wave focusing. There is no bathymetry in the TWB during this phase; it is a flat bottom. Five different wave conditions will be tested including solitary and N-waves. For each wave, ADV's will provide 3D velocity data at 120 different x,y,z combinations, clustered near the onset of breaking. Free surface wave gages and overhead video will track the wave height and the breaking envelope.
Project NEES HI REEF PILOT
	Co-Principal Investigator: Julie Young Start: 25-Oct-2006 End: 10-Nov-2006 Description: The overall objective of this project is to simulate the effect of long solitary wave and short monochromatic regular wave on the sea bed and the structures near the coastal lines. In this pilot study, we investigated the runup and drawdown of regular monochromatic waves on a sandy beach with varying slopes. The wave breaking, bed scour, and sediment transport during the wave runup and drawdown were also studied. Sinusoidal waves with a wide range of height and period were generated. The wave height, velocity, and sediment concentration at differential locations near the breaking and runup region were recorded. The experiments were able to keep most of the physical effects of the real waves, thereby minimizing the scale effects. These experimental results are very important for the study of tsunami wave and storm surges. They are valuable resource for the researcher in the coastal engineering community to validate their numerical simulations and to verify the theoretical studies.
Project Landslide Tsunami Generator
	Principal Investigator: Hermann Fritz Start: 17-Jul-2006 End: 19-Jan-2007 Description: The ultimate long-term goal is to develop a fundamental understanding of the mechanism of tsunamigenic landslides and subsequent tsunami generation, propagation, and run-up. This would allow for improved assessment and possible mitigation of the landslide and tsunami hazard. The goal of the proposed research is to compensate for lack of real world landslide and tsunami data, by the physical modeling of 3-dimensional tsunami evolution using a novel landslide tsunami generator, which will complement the existing NEES tsunami facility at OSU.. The design parameters for the proposed landslide tsunami generator will be determined using governing model similitude and dimensional analysis of the landslide and tsunami characteristics. The size of the NEES Tsunami Wave Basin will provide us with the unique opportunity to study scale effects of tsunami generation and propagation based on a non-dimensional scale series.
Project Tsunami Wave Impact Forces on Cylinders
	Principal Investigator: Philip Liu Co-Principal Investigator: Solomon Yim, Harry Yeh Start: 05-Jun-2006 Description: The purpose of the experiment is to provide accurate wave runup, pressure and total base shear and overturning moment on the cylinders. Wave gauges and acoustic Doppler velocimeters (ADV) were installed at selected locations in the basin to determine the wave elevation and water particle velocities. A number of 43 pressure gauges were flush-mounted on the surface of the cylinder to obtain pressure due to water pressure changes and wave impact loads. The cylinder and its support are carefully designed to serve as a load cell using structure mechanics principles and strain gauges instrumented at strategic support locations. The results will become benchmarks for testing existing and future numerical models for wave runup on structures. In the first phase of the experiment, a single cylinder was considered. A total of 10 wave gages and 5 ADVs were used to measure the wave height and water particle velocities. The cylinder was instrumented with 38 pressure sensors and 4 strain gages. The experimental layout indicated the locations of the wave gage and ADV. The pressure sensors were distributed along the impact face as well as along the side (1st ring, 2nd ring, 3rd ring, and 4th ring). Second phase were carried out from April to May 2007. Three cylinder configurations (C1 layout, C2 layout, C3 layout) were examined in this phase.
Project NEES Performance Curves
	Principal Investigator: Dan Cox Start: 02-May-2006 End: 15-May-2006 Description: The purposes of this experiment are to obtain the data set for evaluating the performance of the solitary wave generation in the Tsunami Wave Basin and to be used for numerical comparison. The measurements of free surfaces and fluid particle velocities were conducted in 8 different cross-shore locations. Total 7 wave gages and 2 ADV's were mounted at the bridge. Tank coordinate refers to x = 0 at the north wall and y = 0 at the wave board's fully retracted location.
Project Tsunami Inundation
	Principal Investigator: Dan Cox Start: 20-Jun-2005 End: 23-Sep-2005 Description: A 3-D complex physical model was constructed in the Tsunami Wave Basin at the O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory at Oregon State University. The objective of the experiment was to measure both the tsunami velocity at offshore locations and the run-up velocities on the bathymetry. Since real world tsunami inundation may have inundation with or without wave breaking, and inundation with wave breaking, laboratory wave conditions were also chosen to have both types. Wave gages and ADVs (acoustic Doppler velocimeters) were used to measure the offshore wave height and wave speed, respectively, and PIV (particle image velocimetry) was used to measure the shallow water and run-up wave velocities on land where it could not be measured by the ADV. At this moment, only the ADV data is available online. The x coordinate is the crosstank direction while the y coordinate is the alongtank direction as shown in the Setup tab.
Project Cross-Shore Sediment Transport Experiment
	Principal Investigator: Dan Cox Start: 01-May-2005 Description: The Cross-shore Sediment Transport Experiment (CROSSTEX) is a multi-year scientific research program designed to improve process-based models of nearshore sediment and wave dynamics. The experimental phase of the program was a coordinated series of near-prototype scale (1:2 to 1:3) experiments in controlled laboratory conditions, conducted at Oregon State University’s O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory (HWRL) during the summer of 2005.