Coastal Structures and Solutions to Coastal Disasters Joint Conference 2015
Evaluation of Shallow Water Waves on Vertical Walls
Publication: Coastal Structures and Solutions to Coastal Disasters 2015: Resilient Coastal Communities
ABSTRACT
The objective of this undergraduate research project was to evaluate the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) methods for estimating wave heights, wave crests, and wave loads on residential buildings in coastal flood zones. Laboratory scale model tests were conducted in the United States Naval Academy’s Coastal Engineering Wave Basin to measure the characteristics and forces imposed by shallow water breaking waves on elevated wall panels. Tests revealed that FEMA underpredicts wave height, wave crest elevation, and lateral wave slam forces. This paper details these research efforts, including background information, laboratory setup and procedures, and the analysis. In examining FEMA’s guidelines, this paper suggests that FEMA should re-evaluate coastal construction regulations to reduce the effects of wave slam on buildings during storm conditions.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to express gratitude to John Zseleczky, Louise Wallendorf, Bill Beaver, and Dan Rhodes for their insightful comments, high research standards, encouragement, and guidance during the laboratory setup and data collection stages of the project.
We are also grateful to Frederick Tidwell for his assistance and patience with helping us develop the MATLAB scripts for the data analysis.
REFERENCES
1.
Coastal Construction Manual: Principles and Practices of Planning, Siting, Designing, Constructing, and Maintaining Residential Buildings in Coastal Areas August 2011. Fourth ed. Washington, DC: FEMA, 2011.
2.
Coastal Engineering Manual. Washington, D.C., U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 2006.
3.
Thomson, William Tyrrell. Theory of Vibration with Applications. 2d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1981.
4.
Bea, R. G., T. Xu, J. Stear, and R. Ramos. “Wave Forces on Decks of Offshore Platforms.” Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering: 136.
5.
Jones, Chris. “Personal Communication via E-mail”, 10 March 2015.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Coastal Structures and Solutions to Coastal Disasters 2015: Resilient Coastal Communities
Pages: 196 - 207
Editors: Louise Wallendorf, U.S. Naval Academy and Daniel T. Cox, Ph.D., Oregon State University
ISBN (Online): 978-0-7844-8030-4
Copyright
© 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Jul 11, 2017
Published in print: Jul 11, 2017
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