Experimental modeling of horizontal and vertical wave forces on an elevated coastal structure

A large-scale physical model was created in Oregon State University's Large Wave Flume to collect an extensive dataset measuring wave-induced horizontal and vertical forces on an idealized coastal structure. Water depth was held constant while wave conditions included regular, irregular, and transient (tsunami-like) waves with different significant wave heights and peak periods for each test. The elevation of the base of the test specimen with respect to the stillwater depth (air gap) was also varied from at-grade to 0.28 m above the stillwater level to better understand the effects of raising or lowering a nearshore structure on increasing or decreasing the horizontal and vertical wave forces. Results indicate that while both horizontal and vertical forces tend to increase with increasing significant wave height, the maximum and top 0.4% of forces increased disproportionally to other characteristic values such as the mean or top 10%. As expected, the horizontal force increased as the test specimen was more deeply submerged and decreased as the structure was elevated to larger air gaps above the stillwater level. However, this trend was not true for the vertical force, which was maximized when the elevation of the base of the structure was equal to the elevation of the stillwater depth. Small wave heights were characterized by low horizontal to vertical force ratios, highlighting the importance of considering vertical wave forces in addition to horizontal wave forces in the design of coastal structures. The findings and data presented here may be used by city planners, engineers, and numerical modelers, for future analyses, informed coastal design, and numerical benchmarking to work toward enabling more resilient nearcoast structures.