Marine Technology – Breaking waves & Tsunami

Charlotte Obhrai
Associate Professor
University of Stavanger
uis.no

1/8/2018

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Content

 Hydrostatics & buoyancy

 Static Stability
 Potential flows
 Potential flow boundary conditions Theory & Practice
 Linear wave theory
 Iregular waves
 Non-linear waves
 Breaking waves
 Tsunamis
Relevant reading:
Ch. 3:Marine Technology and Operations -
Ch.2 BREAKING AND DISSIPATION OF OCEAN
SURFACE WAVES - ALEXANDER V. BABANIN
(upload to canvas)
Todays lecture
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Shoaling
Closer to the coast the waves becomes affected
by the limited water depth and the waves raises
and both the wave height and especially the
wave steepness increases. This phenomena is
called shoaling. Closer to the coast when the
wave steepness or wave height has become too
large the wave breaks.
If we assume:

• The relative change in water depth over one

wave length is small.
• No energy is propagating across wave
orthogonals, i.e. the energy is propagating
perpendicular to the coast.
• No wave breaking.
• The wave period T is unchanged and hence f
and ω are also unchanged. This seems valid
when there is no current and the bottom has
a gentle slope.
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The we can use linear wave theory……..

Shoaling
Remember from lecture 4
1 c 2kd 
P = ....... = gη 2 ⋅ 1 +  P = E ⋅ cg
2 2  sinh 2kd 

Due to the assumptions made the energy is conserved

at A and B we can write:
c gA
E A ⋅ c gA = E B ⋅ c gB HB = HA
c gB
In many cases it is assumed that section A is on deep water we get

c Where K is the shoaling coefficient. We can concluded that the

H
= K = 0g wave height increases as the wave approach the coast. This
H0 cg increase is due to a reduction in the group velocity when the
wave approach shallow waters.
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Refraction of waves

• The basic rule for long waves is Depth contours

that waves are faster in deeper
water and slower in shallower
water
• Leads to refraction, or the
bending of waves as they enter Beach
shallow water
• Often they are still not exactly
parallel to the coast
• Leads to littoral drift – sand
moving along the beach

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 Refraction of waves
wave orthogonals are lines which can be traced out by following the wave direction

Influence of refraction on wave height for three cases. The curves drawn are wave
orthogonals and depth contours. a) Increased wave height at a headland due to focusing of
energy (converging wave orthogonals). b) Decrease in wave height at bay or fjord (diverging
wave orthogaonals). c) Increased wave height behind submerged ridge (converging wave 6

orthogonals).
 Diffraction
When waves impinge on a protruding barrier such as a jetty,
breakwater, or sharply pointed promontory, a portion of the wave
energy makes its way into the shadow zone behind the barrier by the
process known as diffraction. As a consequence, there can be
appreciable wave action in the lee of a natural or man-made
breakwater that would seemingly have afforded a well-protected
anchorage. The diffracted waves in such circumstances have not
turned the comer in the sense of being refracted but have originated
from the tip of the barrier, which acts like a source of waves as it
scatters the original incoming waves
in all directions.

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Diffraction
Although wave heights generally diminish rapidly in the lee of a barrier, there are certain areas
close to the “line of sight” of the incoming waves where the amplitude of the waves is actually
increased. The gap in an a cross harbor breakwater or between two sand spits can also generate
a complicated diffraction pattern. The longer the wavelength of the wave the larger the amount
of diffraction. The greatest diffraction happens when the gap size is about the same size as the
wavelength.

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 Reflection
In addition to refractive and diffractive effects,
waves impinging on a coast may undergo total or
partial reflection back to sea. The proportion of
incoming wave energy reflected from a coast
depends on the beach slope and the wavelength
of the waves. The longer the waves for a specific
beach slope the greater the reflection, because
longer waves experience a greater change in
depth over each wavelength than shorter waves;
in a relative sense the beach appears steeper to
long waves than to short waves.

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Wave Breaking
Wave measurements shows that the wave heights almost never gets higher than approximately 1/10 of
the wave length.
Miche (1944) has shown theoretically that the maximum wave is limited by the fact that the particle
velocity u cannot be larger then the phase velocity c.

The wave steepness is high when the wave breaks and thus the assumptions in the linear theory are
violated too strong to give usable results. Miche (1944) found the maximum steepness

In shallow water ( d/L ≤ 1/20 ) the limit is reduced to:

Observations show that this formula is the upper limit and typically waves break around H/d = 0.6 to 0.8. In
case of irregular waves observations shows that the maximum significant wave height is around Hs/d ≈ 0.5.

In reality the breaking wave height depends in shallow water not only on the depth but also on the
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bottom slope.
 Iribarren number or surf similarity parameter

α is the bed slope

s0 is the wave steepness at the breaker point but using
the deep water wave length.

Typical values of the Iribarren number

used for the different breaker types are:

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Breaker type

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M.V Selkirk Settler winter 1998
Types of breaking wave impacts

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Estimation of Impulse
FZK
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Wave slam on cylinders

Impact like force

Contains higher harmonics
May cause ringing (transient
resonant vibrations)

Zang, J. Taylor, P.H. and Tello, M. (2010).

Breaking waves on truss structures?

No real design guidance - very large uncertainties for wave impact loading

Very active field of research – recent experiments in the large wave flume by UIS
Statoil and NTNU

Breaking waves wave are thought to be important for future developments at

Dogger Bank and other sites in European waters
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Tsunami
• Tsunami is a Japanese term that means "harbour wave". It is used worldwide to describe a large
sea wave generated by sea-floor disturbance.

• Oxford English Dictionary: A brief series of long, high undulations on the surface of the sea
caused by an earthquake or similar underwater disturbance. These travel at great speed and
often with sufficient force to inundate the land; freq. misnamed a tidal wave.

• Some spectacular tsunamis such as the 1883 Krakatoa and 1998 Aitape tsunamis were generated
by sea-floor disturbances associated with volcanic eruptions or landslides. Subduction zone
earthquakes, though, are the most common source of destructive tsunamis.

• The height of a tsunami in the open ocean might be of the order of 0.5m, but its wavelength
might be several tens of kilometres: any change of water surface elevation can hardly be
recognised.

• Period of waves – 5 min to 40 min, corresponding to a length of 70-500 km

• Approaching land, the period remains the same, the wave speed decreases (speed ~ depth1/2) 24

so that its length is less, and to conserve energy, its height increases (height ~ depth-1/4).
Tsunami source areas in the Pacific Ocean

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 Tsunami generation (1)
Mechanism for generation by a volcanic
explosion such as Krakatau, 1833 event
where much earth and rock is blown
into the atmosphere, leading to the
generation of a negative wave

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 Tsunami generation (2)

• Submarine landslides may be rapid events, but are not instantaneous.

• We would expect an initial displacement resembling that shown, which will
result in a wave of depression propagating onshore, followed by a wave of
elevation.
• This would explain the long period of tsunami
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Tsunami generation (3)

Subduction zone generation, where the upper

plate does not rebound, while the subducting
plate slides downwards, causing a negative 28
displacement on the sea surface
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 Why Tsunamis Become Deadly as They Approach Shore

In shallow water c = gd

In 4000 m water depth: c1 ~ 10 ⋅ 4000 = 200m / s = 720km / h

In 5 m water depth: c 2 ~ 10 ⋅ 5 = 7m / s = 25km / h

1 1
⋅ρ ⋅ g ⋅H 2 ⋅ g ⋅d
E = ρgH 2 Energy flux: Ef =
8
8
1 1
⋅ ρ ⋅ g ⋅ H 1 ⋅ g ⋅ d1 = ⋅ ρ ⋅ g ⋅ H 2 ⋅ g ⋅ d 2
2 2
Energy conservation: 8 8

1/ 4
d 
1/ 4
 4000 
⇒ H ⋅ d1 = H ⋅ d 2
2 2
H 2 = H 1  1  H 2 = 1m  ≈ 5.3m
1 2
 d2   5 

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wave height increases greatly when the wave approaches shallow water
Propagation
Characteristics of tsunami approaching a shore

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Out at sea, the tsunami wave is about 100 km long and usually less than 1 meter high.
But as the wave approaches the shore, it slows down, its wavelength gets shorter, and
the wave amplitude increases as the water alternately piles up much higher and is
depressed much lower.
Three factors affect the propagation and amplitude of the tsunami.
1. Slowing of the wave speed
2. Refraction and focusing
3. Lateral constriction into a narrowing bay (funnel effect, a form of focusing)
Summary shallow water wave modelling
 The Boussinesq approximation for water waves is an approximation valid for weakly non-linear and fairly
long waves. The Boussinesq approximation for water waves takes into account the vertical structure of
the horizontal and vertical flow velocity. This results in non-linear partial differential equations, called
Boussinesq-type equations, which incorporate frequency dispersion. In coastal engineering, Boussinesq-
type equations are frequently used in computer models for the simulation of water waves in shallow seas
and harbours.
 While the Boussinesq equations allow for waves traveling simultaneously in opposing directions, it is
often advantageous to only consider waves traveling in one direction. Under small additional
assumptions, the Boussinesq equations reduce to:
1. the Korteweg–de Vries equation for wave propagation in one horizontal dimension,
2. the Kadomtsev–Petviashvili equation for (near uni-directional) wave propagation in two horizontal dimensions,
 Besides solitary wave solutions, the Korteweg–de Vries equation also has periodic and exact solutions,
called cnoidal waves. These are approximate solutions of the Boussinesq equation.
 The shallow water equations are derived from depth-integrating the Navier–Stokes equations, in the case
where the horizontal length scale is much greater than the vertical length scale. Vertically integrating
allows the vertical velocity to be removed from the equations. The shallow water equations are thus
derived. The shallow water equations are nonlinear and do have amplitude dispersion, but no frequency
dispersion; they are valid for very long waves, λ > 20 d.

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Soliton fission

Soliton fission and generation of waves as a soliton crosses a shelf - Splitting of the tsunami into
several solitons as it crosses a shelf – from numerical solution of the full equations, but this
phenomena can be explained by weakly nonlinear-dispersive scattering theory
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tsunami_with_Boussinesq_and_Shallow_water_equations
.gif#mediaviewer/File:Tsunami_with_Boussinesq_and_Shallow_water_equations.gif
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A Study of Tsunami Wave Fission in an Undistorted Experiment – MATSUYAMA(2007)
Types of tsunami behavior in shallow water

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The 26th December 2004 Tsunami
To simulate the 26th December 2004, Sumatra
earthquake of magnitude 9.0 the following
logical assumptions were made:

1. Length of the fault rupture ~ 1000 km (from the

spatial distribution of aftershocks)
2. Width of the fault rupture ~ 100 km (from the
focus up to the bathymetric trench along the
megathrust)
3. Average displacement or slip along fault rupture ~
15m
4. Thickness of the fault shear zone across the
megathrust ~ 500m

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 http://nctr.pmel.noaa.gov/Mov/indo_gl2.mov

Sumtra earthquake 2004

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Arica – on the border between Chile and Peru

• Wave heights (crest-to-trough) of 70cm

• 26 hours after the initial shock
• The Pacific Ocean seems to have rung like a bell for days
• Notice that the first wave seems to have been one of depression 45

• Notice greater complexity of semi-diurnal tide

Sumtra earthquake 2004

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BANDA ACEH, INDONESIA: June 23, 2004
A satellite image of the waterfront area of Aceh
province's capital city before the tsunami.
BANDA ACEH, INDONESIA: December 28, 2004
An image taken after the tsunami shows destroyed
housing and the shoreline nearly wiped out.
 Japan 2011 Tsunami Amplitude over the Pacific Ocean. Ribbons of greater
height are caused by focusing due to refraction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyxr7nYH96M&index=24&list=PLkCTP872qR8eWH46LPISlC4GsSZq4cIOW
Tsunami warning
Tsunami warnings take time to generate. The
Japanese government issued a local tsunami
warning three minutes after the quake
struck, and the Pacific Tsunami Warning
Center, run by NOAA, issued its regional
warning nine minutes after the quake struck,
or at 5:55 GMT. These longer response times
were a reflection of heavier computation
requirements. NOAA must determine
whether the quake happened in an ocean
basin, the likely deformation of the ocean
floor, and what kind of motion was created
by the quake

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Tsunami warning

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