A Study on the Construction of the Tsunami Hazard Database for Mooring Vessels in the Ports

Abstract

Abstract When a tsunami attacks a coastal area, vessels moored at the wharf suffer serious damage. In fact, more than 20,000 vessels have been damaged, such as landing on a wharf, drifting, or colliding due to the tsunami caused by the Tohoku earthquake in 2011. Tsunamis are significant disasters in Japan. Many researchers have studied the prediction of tsunami damages and the tsunami damage protection measures. However, there are various approaches for studying tsunami damage prediction and tsunami protection measures for each researcher. This means that the tsunami damages and tsunami protection measures are evaluated using various methods in each area and port. Accordingly, when tsunami damages are evaluated, there is currently no unified evaluation method in Japan as a whole. This study proposes a tsunami hazard database for major Japanese ports using the unified evaluation method. The moving particle simulation (MPS) method was used as a tsunami hazard simulation method. Target ports are 23 major Japanese ports. The landing on a wharf and breakage of mooring lines were evaluated as hazard cases for the mooring vessel. In evaluating the landing of vessels on a wharf, the tsunami height in each port, the draft of vessels, and the crown heights by the difference in tidal levels were considered. The tsunami hazard database was constructed based on these results. Finally, tsunami hazards in major Japanese ports were evaluated using the tsunami hazard database.