Laboratory Experiments for Solitary Wave Force on Vertical Structures

Abstract

In this study, a series of laboratory experiments are conducted to analyze wave force of solitary waves acting on the inland structures. A wave tank for laboratory experiments measures 32.5 m long, 1.1 m deep and 0.6 m wide and a piston-type wave generator is installed at the end of wave tank which is available to generate solitary wave. Practical maximum wave heights that can be generated by wave maker is limited, so in this study the water depth is changed from0.2 m to 0.3 m to set up the relative wave heights normalized by the water depth 0.1 to 0.2 as non-breaking conditions for reflecting the characteristic waves of propagating tsunami. Pressure transducers are installed inside the structures. They have high response for abnormal pressure and impact pressure are employed for measuring wave pressure installed inside of structures. On the vertical structures, we estimate wave force to use the integrated pressure distributions and compare with wave force according to the structures. This study gives the coefficient of relationship between inundation depths and wave forces by comparing with the previous practical formula for wave force.