TY - JOUR
T1 - Estimation of maximum possible wave heights in surf zone
AU - Rattanapitikon, Winyu
AU - Tran, Khiem Quang
AU - Shibayama, Tomoya
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was sponsored by the Thailand Research Fund and by MEXT, Japanese Government.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 World Scientific Publishing Company and Japan Society of Civil Engineers.
PY - 2015/6/20
Y1 - 2015/6/20
N2 - The breaking-limited (or depth-limited) approach is a traditional method to determine the maximum possible wave height for the design of coastal structures in the surf zone. It is well recognized that the maximum wave height in the surf zone is limited by wave breaking. The maximum possible wave height is usually determined from a breaker height formula. The present study was undertaken to examine the applicability of 14 existing breaker height formulas for computing the maximum possible wave heights. The existing breaker height formulas were examined against measured regular and irregular wave heights. A total of 17 863 data points from 30 sources of published experimental data were used to examine the formulas. The experiments cover a wide range of wave and bottom topography conditions including small-scale, large-scale, and field experiments. It was found that the errors of existing formulas for regular and irregular waves have the same tendency. The existing formulas give considerable underestimation of the maximum possible wave heights in shallow water. The top three formulas were modified by including a new form of relative depth into each formula. Overall, the modified formulas give a considerable better estimation than those of existing formulas.
AB - The breaking-limited (or depth-limited) approach is a traditional method to determine the maximum possible wave height for the design of coastal structures in the surf zone. It is well recognized that the maximum wave height in the surf zone is limited by wave breaking. The maximum possible wave height is usually determined from a breaker height formula. The present study was undertaken to examine the applicability of 14 existing breaker height formulas for computing the maximum possible wave heights. The existing breaker height formulas were examined against measured regular and irregular wave heights. A total of 17 863 data points from 30 sources of published experimental data were used to examine the formulas. The experiments cover a wide range of wave and bottom topography conditions including small-scale, large-scale, and field experiments. It was found that the errors of existing formulas for regular and irregular waves have the same tendency. The existing formulas give considerable underestimation of the maximum possible wave heights in shallow water. The top three formulas were modified by including a new form of relative depth into each formula. Overall, the modified formulas give a considerable better estimation than those of existing formulas.
KW - Maximum possible wave height
KW - breaking-limited wave height
KW - depth-limited wave height
KW - design wave height
KW - surf zone
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U2 - 10.1142/S0578563415500011
DO - 10.1142/S0578563415500011
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84931561549
SN - 0578-5634
VL - 57
JO - Coastal Engineering in Japan
JF - Coastal Engineering in Japan
IS - 2
M1 - 1550001
ER -