Harbor resonance induced by subaerial landslide-generated impact waves

Past studies of harbor resonance have mainly been restricted to the quasi-steady oscillations induced by steady wave conditions. This paper investigates the response of a rectangular harbor to subaerial landslide-generated impact waves based on physical models, in order to compare the oscillations induced by steady and transient waves. In response to steady incident waves, oscillations within the harbor need to experience a long process to obtain their maximum value before the input energy and the losses are balanced. Landslide-generated impact waves usually include components with solitary wave characteristics and also components with dispersive wave characteristics. Each component travels with a different celerity. Usually, solitary wave components propagate faster, and arrive in the harbor first. Oscillations attain their maximum status as soon as these components arrive. The subsequently arriving components with dispersive characteristics do not enhance the resonance oscillations. So the waves with solitary characteristics are considered to play an important role in harbor resonance. Numerical experiments, using the FUNWAVE model, were conducted in order to further verify these conclusions.