Numerical Modeling of Tsunami Bore Attenuation and Extreme Hydrodynamic Impact Forces Using the SPH Method

• Main Author: Pich­é, Steffanie
• Language: en
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: Tsunami; Coastal Forest; Debris Impact; SPH
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10393/30456

Understanding the impact of coastal forests on the propagation of rapidly advancing onshore tsunami bores is difficult due to complexity of this phenomenon and the large amount of parameters which must be considered. The research presented in the thesis focuses on understanding the protective effect of the coastal forest on the forces generated by the tsunami and its ability to reduce the propagation and velocity of the incoming tsunami bore. Concern for this method of protecting the coast from tsunamis is based on the effectiveness of the forest and its ability to withstand the impact forces caused by both the bore and the debris carried along by it. The devastation caused by the tsunami has been investigated in recent examples such as the 2011 Tohoku Tsunami in Japan and the Indian Ocean Tsunami which occurred in 2004. This research examines the reduction of the spatial extent of the tsunami bore inundation and runup due to the presence of the coastal forest, and attempts to quantify the impact forces induced by the tsunami bores and debris impact on the structures. This research work was performed using a numerical model based on the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method which is a single-phase three-dimensional model. The simulations performed in this study were separated into three sections. The first section focused on the reduction of the extent of the tsunami inundation and the magnitude of the bore velocity by the coastal forest. This section included the analysis of the hydrodynamic forces acting on the individual trees. The second section involved the numerical modeling of some of the physical laboratory experiments performed by researchers at the University of Ottawa, in cooperation with colleagues from the Ocean, Coastal and River Engineering Lab at the National Research Council, Ottawa, in an attempt to validate the movement and impact forces of floating driftwood on a column. The final section modeled the movement and impact of floating debris traveling through a large-scale model of a coastal forest.