Abstract
Following the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, Japanese tsunami protection guidelines stipulate that coastal defences should ensure that settlements are shielded from the coastal inundation that would result from Level 1 tsunami events (with return periods in the order of about 100 years). However, the overtopping mechanism and leeward inundation heights of tsunami bores as they hit coastal structures has received little attention in the past. To ascertain this phenomenon, the authors conducted physical experiments using a dam-break mechanism, which could generate bores that overtopped different types of structures. The results indicate that it is necessary to move away from only considering the tsunami inundation height at the beach, and also consider the bore velocity as it approaches the onshore area. The authors also prepared a simple, conservative method of estimating the inundation height after a structure of a given height, provided that the incident bore velocity and height are known.
Highlights
The 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami devastated much of the northeast coast of Japan, and is considered to be one of the most severe events to have affected Japan since historical records began
The authors attempted to provide some general design guidelines regarding how high a structure would have to be to protect against a tsunami, which would obviously be highly dependent on its location
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Summary
The 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami ( referred to as “the event”) devastated much of the northeast coast of Japan, and is considered to be one of the most severe events to have affected Japan since historical records began. The authors attempted to provide some general design guidelines regarding how high a structure would have to be to protect against a tsunami, which would obviously be highly dependent on its location Those facing a direct tsunami attack (characterized by high velocity waves that would otherwise result in a high run-up) would require to be built to a higher level than those that are located in a more sheltered location (which might face a “rapidly rising tide” or slow bore, that would result in lower run-up)
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