This paper concerns the statistical distribution of both wave crest elevations and wave heights in deep water. A new set of laboratory observations undertaken in a directional wave basin located in the Hydrodynamics laboratory in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London is presented. The resulting data were analysed and compared to a number of commonly applied statistical distributions. In respect of the wave crest elevations the measured data is compared to both linear and second-order order distributions, whilst the wave heights were compared to the Rayleigh distribution, the Forristall (1978) [1] empirical distribution and the modified Glukhovskiy distribution ([2] and [3]). Taken as a whole, the data confirms that the directionality of the sea state is critically important in determining the statistical distributions. For example, in terms of the wave crest statistics effects beyond second-order are most pronounced in uni-directional seas. However, if the sea state is sufficiently steep, nonlinear effects arising at third order and above can also be significant in directionally spread seas. Important departures from Forristall’s empirical distribution for the wave heights are also identified. In particular, the data highlights the limiting effect of wave breaking in the most severe seas suggesting that many of the commonly applied design solutions may be conservative in terms of crest height and wave height predictions corresponding to a small (10−4) probability of exceedance.
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ASME 2011 30th International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering
June 19–24, 2011
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Conference Sponsors:
- Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering Division
ISBN:
978-0-7918-4434-2
PROCEEDINGS PAPER
Wave Statistics in Nonlinear Sea States
Mohamed Latheef,
Mohamed Latheef
Imperial College London, London, UK
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Chris Swan
Chris Swan
Imperial College London, London, UK
Search for other works by this author on:
Mohamed Latheef
Imperial College London, London, UK
Chris Swan
Imperial College London, London, UK
Paper No:
OMAE2011-50100, pp. 761-769; 9 pages
Published Online:
October 31, 2011
Citation
Latheef, M, & Swan, C. "Wave Statistics in Nonlinear Sea States." Proceedings of the ASME 2011 30th International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering. Volume 2: Structures, Safety and Reliability. Rotterdam, The Netherlands. June 19–24, 2011. pp. 761-769. ASME. https://doi.org/10.1115/OMAE2011-50100
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