Extreme Inundation Statistics on a Composite Beach

• Main Authors: Ahmed Abdalazeez, Ira Didenkulova, Denys Dutykh, Céline Labart
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-05-01
• Series: Water
• Subjects: wave statistics; wave runup; numerical modelling; nonlinear shallow water theory; wave breaking; freak runups
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/6/1573

The runup of initial Gaussian narrow-banded and wide-banded wave fields and its statistical characteristics are investigated using direct numerical simulations, based on the nonlinear shallow water equations. The bathymetry consists of the section of a constant depth, which is matched with the beach of constant slope. To address different levels of nonlinearity, time series with five different significant wave heights are considered. The selected wave parameters allow for also seeing the effects of wave breaking on wave statistics. The total physical time of each simulated time-series is 1000 h (~360,000 wave periods). The statistics of calculated wave runup heights are discussed with respect to the wave nonlinearity, wave breaking and the bandwidth of the incoming wave field. The conditional Weibull distribution is suggested as a model for the description of extreme runup heights and the assessment of extreme inundations.