Transient harbor oscillations induced by solitary waves: FUNWAVE-TVD model, experimental validation, and parametric study

Abstract

Harbor oscillations are phenomena wherein wave energy is trapped and amplified inside harbors. This significantly affects harbor operations and the safety of moored vessels. Among excitation factors, tsunamis are particularly important because they can trigger transient harbor oscillations, which are devastating. However, studies related to tsunami-wave-excited harbor oscillations are scarce; further, most of them employ numerical models based on the Boussinesq equation. However, the validity of these numerical models for harbor oscillations excited by tsunamis is yet to be verified through physical experiments.In this study, physical experiments are conducted to simulate the response of a regular-shaped harbor and an irregular-shaped harbor under the action of tsunami waves. A corresponding numerical model based on the Boussinesq equation is designed to invert the experimental results. Moreover, different parameter settings are considered to determine the optimal combination of parameters. The results indicate that, under a reasonable setup, this Boussinesq-type wave model can simulate transient harbor oscillations induced by tsunami waves well. Further, the validated wave model is employed to investigate the effects of various wave heights and water depths on the resonance within the harbor, from which useful findings have been obtained for engineering practice.