Bottom pressure distribution under a solitonic wave reflecting on a vertical wall

• Travelling and fully reflected solitonic waves are propagated numerically.
• A first approach solves numerically the fully nonlinear potential equations.
• A second one is based on the solution of the Green–Naghdi system of equations.
• Bottom pressure distributions and runup heights obtained are analysed and compared.
• Green–Naghdi equations predict satisfactorily the evolution of the bottom pressure.

The bottom pressure distribution under solitonic waves, travelling or fully reflected at a wall is analysed here. Results given by two kind of numerical models are compared. One of the models is based on the Green–Naghdi equations, while the other one is based on the fully nonlinear potential equations. The two models differ through the way in which wave dispersion is taken into account. This approach allows us to emphasize the influence of dispersion, in the case of travelling or fully reflected waves. The Green–Naghdi model is found to predict well the bottom pressure distribution, even when the quantitative representation of the runup height is not satisfactorily described.