NUMERICAL MODELING OF NON-BREAKING, IMPULSIVE BREAKING, AND BROKEN WAVE INTERACTION WITH ELEVATED COASTAL STRUCTURES

Hurricanes generate elevated surge levels and strong waves that can cause extensive damage to buildings and other coastal infrastructure, especially those located in low-lying coastal regions. The history of recorded damage on buildings near the shoreline from past storms indicates that the intensity of storms and resulting damage has increased over the past 30 years (Emanuel, 2005). For example, the United States has been impacted by recent events such as Hurricanes Katrina (2005), Ike (2008), Sandy (2012), and Harvey (2017). Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models have been widely developed and applied to estimate the wave pressure and forces; advances in recent years have been supported by an increase in computation power, which allows more detailed calculations of the complex hydrodynamics associated with wave action. The performance of CFD models must be validated or verified through detailed comparisons with benchmark tests (e.g. analytic solutions or physical experiments).