IRREGULAR WAVES

&
WAVE HEIGHT DISTRIBUTION
Trilochan Sahoo

Department of Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture

Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur - 721302, INDIA
Email:[email protected]
 A regular wave
The general pattern of a sinusoidal wave is of the form

  a cos(kx  t )

 amplitude (a)  phase velocity ( c =  / T )

 wavelength ()  relative depth (h / )
 frequency ()  Wave period (T = 2/ )
 wave height (H = 2a)  Wave steepness (H/ )
 Wave Dispersion Relation
Wave dispersion relation
in water of finite depth 𝜔 𝑔𝑘𝑡𝑎𝑛ℎ 𝑘ℎ 𝐴
Few observations rom the dispersion relation
Deep water: 𝑘ℎ 𝜋 which is equivalent to

Intermediate depth: 𝑘ℎ 𝜋 which is equivalent to

Shallow water: 𝑘ℎ which is equivalent to

These equivalent relations are obtained by using 𝑘 2𝜋/𝜆
NB. 𝑘ℎ is the non-dimensional wave number and ℎ/𝜆 is the relative depth
Thus, in case of deep water, 𝑘ℎ 𝜋 ⇒ 𝑡𝑎𝑛ℎ𝑘ℎ 1. Thus, (A) yields
𝜔 𝑔𝑘 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑘ℎ 𝜋 which implies 𝜆 1.56 𝑇
Similarly, in case of shallow water, 𝑘ℎ ⇒ 𝑡𝑎𝑛ℎ𝑘ℎ 𝑘ℎ. Thus, (A) yields

𝜔 𝑔𝑘. 𝑘ℎ ⇒ 𝑔ℎ ⇒ 𝑐 𝑔ℎ ⇒ 𝑐 𝑔ℎ. (B)

Moreover, from (B), by definition, wave c is the celerity which is also

known as phase velocity can be defined as 𝑐 .
 Worked Examples
Q1. A wave in deep water has a period of 10 second. What is the wave length
of the wave ? Find the speed of propagation ?
Answer. In case of deep water, 𝜆 1.56𝑇 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑐 1.56𝑇.
Here, time period T=10s., Thus, wave length and speed are given by
15.6𝑚
𝜆 156𝑚 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑐 .
𝑠
Q2. A tsunami wave of period 20min is propagating from a depth of 4000m to
a depth of 10 m. Under the assumption of shallow water approximation, find
the wave length and speed at a depth of 4000m as well as at a depth of 10m.
Discuss the difference in the wave length and speed if any ?
Answer. Under shallow water assumption, 𝑐 𝑔ℎ.
Thus, for ℎ 4000, 𝑐 9.8𝑋4000 ?
Similarly, for ℎ 10, 𝑐 9.8𝑋10 ?
Now, wave speed 𝑐 ⇒ 𝜆 𝑐𝑇.
Thus, for ℎ 4000, 𝜆 1200 9.8𝑋4000 ?
Moreover, for ℎ 10, 𝜆 1200 9.8𝑋10 ?
A comparison of wave length and speed demonstrates, that near the shore
line, both wave length and speed of propagation is much less than that ine
deep sea at a depth of 4000m
 Solution of the dispersion relation
• What is to be done if the wave period and water depth is mentioned
without any information whether it is a case of deep water or shallow
water?
• How to calculate the wave length or wave number ?
• In such a situation, if one is interested to apply the special formulae, then
initially it has to assumed for shallow/deep water before considering the
case of intermediate depth.
• However, the assumption to be verified by calculating the classification
criteria of deep/shallow water approximation.
• In case, non of these criteria are satisfied, it has to be computed for finite
water depth directly using the dispersion relation.
• For solving the dispersion relation, one has to make use of the Newton-
Raphson method or other numerical method by choosing a suitable initial
guess.
• In case the values are obtained in case of shallow/deep water which are not
the actual solution, an average of the solutions of deep and shallow water
can be chosen as the initial guess.
• The same can be worked out for few cases using MATLAB or even a
calculator for sake of practice.
 A two-dimensional wave profile
𝜂 𝑥, 𝑧, 𝑡 𝑎 cos 𝒌. 𝒙 𝜔𝑡 𝜖

where 𝒙 𝑥, 𝑧 , 𝒌 𝑘 , 𝑘 , 𝜖 is the phase angle, 𝑘 𝑘𝑐𝑜𝑠 𝜃,

𝑘 𝑘𝑠𝑖𝑛 𝜃 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑘 𝑘 𝑘 , 𝜃 is the angle in which the wave
propagates. The one-dimensional wave profile is obtained as a special
case for 𝜃 0 and the wave profile reduces to

𝜂 𝑥, 𝑡 𝑎 cos 𝑘𝑥 𝜔𝑡 𝜖

Superposition of waves of two different phase angle

𝜂 𝑥, 𝑡 𝑎 cos 𝑘𝑥 𝜔𝑡 𝜖 𝑎 cos 𝑘𝑥 𝜔𝑡 𝜖

For the two waves are in phase, i.e., 𝜖 𝜖 , 𝜂 𝑥, 𝑡 2𝑎 cos 𝑘𝑥 𝜔t 𝜖 .

On the other hand, if 𝜖 𝜖 𝜋, then 𝜂 𝑥, 𝑡 0.
Q1. What happens to superposition of waves propagating in same/opposite
directions ?
Q2. How the standing waves are performed and how they are different
from that of progressive waves.
 Few more questions !!!
 Whether change in water depth affect the wave motion and thus the resultant
wave profile ?
 How the change in the direction of wave angle affect ?
 Does the change in wave period affect the speed of propagation.
 Whether change in water depth affect wave motion in case of deep water ?
 Whether change in water depth will affect the amplitude of wave motion ?
 Wave characteristics changes throughout the year. What will be the wave height
that will be considered for the purpose of design ?
 Whether wave amplitude close to the surface will remain the same as we
proceed near the seabed ?
 How the speed of propagation of waves differ as one moves from deep sea to
the near shore region ?
 What happens to waves when it approaches towards the shore on a sloping
beach ?
 Irregular waves
Introduction. The monochromatic waves are of same frequency. However,
by looking at the sea surface one finds that the ocean surface is composed of a
large variety of waves moving in different directions and with different
frequencies, phases and amplitudes. Thus, an accurate description of the ocean
surface is composed of a large number of such waves.
 Energy flux of regular waves
In regular waves:
• Wave energy per unit horizontal surface area
E  12  gAw2
• Wave energy flux per unit wave crest length
Pwave  E c g

where c is the group velocity which represents the

rate at which wave energy propagates unlike c is the rate at
which wave propagates.
• In deep water
c g  12 c  g (4f ) .
 Wave Spectrum
 It is easy to present regular waves once we know the
wave frequency, amplitude and wave length.
 However, ocean waves are irregular in nature. How to
use these irregular waves and obtain the amplitude of
these waves ?
 How to present the individual waves of the sea state
which is a combination of many waves of different
amplitude and frequency ?
 Can the knowledge of regular waves be used to compute
the characteristics of the irregular waves ?
 What will be the design height which will be used for the
design of a structure in ocean environment ?
 What about wave statistics and wave spectra ?
 Discrete and Continuous Spectra
 Discrete
amplitude
spectrum

 Discrete
energy
spectrum

 Continuous
amplitude
spectrum

 Continuous
energy
spectrum
 Fourier Series and Wave Spectra
As discussed earlier, the sea surface is represented as a superposition of waves of
different heights, frequencies and phases. Here, the waves do not have any fixed
periods and are of the form (assuming position is fixed at x=0)

   an cos(nt   n )
n 1
On the other hand, for waves of certain fixed fundamental period T=2p, the sea
surface can be expanded in a Fourier series and is given by
 
    an cos nt  bn sin nt    An cos nt   
n 0 n 0

where   2 T   p , An  an2  b ,n  tan1(bn / an ),

2
n

1 d 2 p n t
an    (t )cos dt , n  0,1,2,...,
p d p
1 d 2 p n t
bn    (t )sin dt , n=1,2,...,
p d p
Such waves are irregular waves. In the above integrals, d can be chosen as d=0, -p
as appropriate.
 Fourier Series and Wave Energy
Average wave energy per cycle is given by

g
 E    2 (t ) 
2
2 
1 d 2 p a 1
where   2 (t ) 
2p d
 2
(t ) dt  0

4 2 n1
 ( an
2
 b 2
n)

  2 (t )  is the mean square value

of  (t ) over a wave cycle. For all
practical purposes, the upper limit
of summation is truncated for
some large value of N. In the
above two representation, the
frequencies are discrete and the
associated plot for wave amplitude
versus frequencies are referred as
discrete amplitude spectrum.
 Continuous Spectrum of wave records

 (t )   a()cost  b()sin t d
0
 
where a()   a(t )costdt and b()   a(t )sin tdt
 

are the continuous amplitude spectra. The total energy of a wave E per unit
surface area in the wave record between infinite time limit is given by
g g  2
 ()d.

E      
2 2
(t ) dt a ( ) b
2  2 0

If   2 (t )  is the mean square value of  (t ) over a specified record length T, then

 a0 1  2
2
 1 T /2 2
  (t )  lim    (t )dt  
2
  (an  bn2 )

T  T T /2
 4 2 n1
The mean energy per unit area is obtained as (Spectral energy is s()  A2 () / ( T ))
g  A2 ()d 
 E 
2 
0 T
 S ()d.
0

Auto-corelation method and the fast Fourier transform method are

used to calculate the energy spectrum of wave records.
 Directional wave spectrum
In reality, the sea state can be represented in a number of ways. Unlike
the case of a regular two-dimensional wave profile in which the
direction of the wave profile is assumed to be fixed, the wave direction
can vary in the ocean.
For example, during a cyclone, the direction of propagation can be in
the range 0 𝜃 2𝜋. In such a situation, the sea state can be presented
by taking wave direction into account. Thus, the directional wave
profile is represented as

𝜂 𝑥, 𝑧, 𝑡 ∑ 𝑐 𝜃 𝑒 𝑑𝜃
where 𝑘 𝑘 𝑐𝑜𝑠 𝜃, 𝑘 𝑘 𝑠𝑖𝑛 𝜃 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑘 𝑧
𝑘 𝑘 with 𝜃 being the angle between the wave
orthogonals and 𝑥-axis as discussed earlier.
In such a case, the wave energy spectrum can be
obtained as (assuming that the waves are measured at Θ 𝑥
𝑥, 𝑧 0,0

𝑆 𝜎 𝑐 𝜃 𝑑𝜃 for ∞ 𝑛 ∞.
 Wave Height Distribution
Introduction.The sea surface is composed of waves propagating in different
directions and with different frequencies, phases and amplitudes. Thus, for
accurate realisation of the sea surface, a large number of waves must be
superimposed. However, for designing any marine structure, the designer has
to consider the maximum expected wave height. Over the years, several such
wave heights have been used for characterizing the sea surface. Some of the
commonly used wave heights are the significant wave height, root mean square
wave height and the maximum wave height. To envisage the various wave
heights, consider a group of N wave heights measured at a point and are
referred as 𝐻 , 𝐻 , 𝐻 , … , 𝐻 . Assume that the wave heights are arranged
sequentially from largest to smallest.

Significant wave height is defined as the average of the first highest N/3
waves which is denoted as and is written as 𝐻 / and is given by the formula

3
𝐻 / 𝐻 .
𝑁
Similarly, 𝐻 is defined as the average of the first 𝑝𝑁 waves with 0 𝑝 1.
Thus, 𝐻 is the average of the average of the first highest N waves and is simply
the average wave height. The concept of significant wave height was first
introduced by Sverdrup and Munkin 1947.
 Wave Height Distribution
Root-mean-square wave height is defined by the formula
/
1
𝐻 𝐻
𝑁
The value of 𝐻 is always larger than 𝐻 in real ocean.

Maximum wave height 𝐻 is defined as

0.2886
𝐻 ln 𝑁 𝐻
ln 𝑁
This definition was first given by Longuet-Higgins in 1952.
Narrow banded spectra. Assuming that the ocean surface is composed of a
large number of waves of different frequencies, amplitudes and phases. In
particular, when these waves are about a narrow frequency band about a common
frequency 𝜎, then we say the ocean waves are in a narrow banded spectra. In such
a situation, 𝜂 𝑡 is written as -
𝜂 𝑡 𝑅𝑒 𝑒 𝑐 𝑡
where c 𝑡 =∑ e^{i(ω 𝑡 𝜔𝑡 𝜀 }
is the slowly varying envelope from which the probability of the wave height
distribution can be examined.
Longuit-Higgins proved that a narrow band Gaussian ocean wave whose
components are in random phase follows the Rayleigh distribution.
 Rayleigh distribution
Rayleigh distribution. In the narrow banded wave spectra, where 𝜂 𝑡 is given
by
𝜂 𝑡 𝑅𝑒 𝑒 𝑐 𝑡 ,𝑐 𝑡 ∑ 𝑎 𝑒
assuming K as very large, the probability of a wave height H greater than or
equal to an arbitrary height 𝐻 is called the Rayleigh distribution and is given by
𝐻
𝑃 𝐻 𝐻 exp
𝐻
However, if n is the number of waves higher than 𝐻 and N is the total number
of waves, then
𝑃 𝐻 𝐻 .

Thus, the above two expression yields

/
𝐻 𝐻 ln 𝑁/𝑛
which yields
/
𝐻 𝐻 ln 1/𝑝
 Rayleigh distribution Contd…
Rayleigh probability distribution function is defined as
𝑃 𝐻 𝐻 1 exp

Rayleigh probability density function is defined as

𝑃(𝐻 ) 𝑃 𝐻 𝐻

which yields 𝐻
2𝐻 exp
𝐻
𝑃(H)
𝐻
The derivative of P(H) is equated to zero to obtain

=
√

which gives the most frequently occurring waves. From Rayleigh probability density
functions, the following relations can be derived easily.

𝐻 =0.886 𝐻 𝐻 / =1.416 𝐻 ,𝐻 / =1.80 𝐻

Wave Height Distribution of Irregular Waves
Unlike regular waves, irregular waves are a combination of many regular waves of
different amplitudes/heights and periods. Thus, one of the measure job in
irregular waves is to determine the wave period and height of the irregular waves.

   an cos(kn x  nt   n )
n 1
Assuming the wave heights are measured at a specific location, for wave height
measurement, these are assumed to be independent of space and is considered as a
function of time only. Moreover, for wave records, the phases can have any value
between 0 and 2𝜋 without any preference for any one value. So we will ignore the
phase spectrum. Thus, the free surface elevation can be written in the form

   an cos nt
n 1
Further, often the irregular waves are considered as random waves and the
observations are formally treated as a realisation of stochastic process, i.e. to
characterize all possible observations (time records) that could have been made
under the conditions of the actual observation. Thus, the amplitude spectrum
remains to characterize the wave record.
 Wave Height Distribution of Irregular Waves
Contd…
To remove the sample character of the spectrum, repeat the experiment many times
(say N) and take the average over all these experiments, to find the average
amplitude spectrum
1 M
ai 
M
a
m 1
i ,m for all frequencies i

Since the wave energy is proportional to the square of the wave amplitude (not to
the amplitude), often, it is more meaningful to use the variance of each wave
component.
M
1
1 a2 
2 i M m12
1 a2

i ,m

The variance spectrum is discrete, i.e., only the frequencies f i  i / T are present,
whereas in fact all frequencies are present at sea. This is resolved by letting the
frequency interval f  1 T  0. The variance density spectrum is defined as

1 Units of S f ( f ) is m 2s or m 2 /Hz
S f ( f )  lim 1
2 a 2
f 0 f
i
Wave Height Distribution of Irregular Waves
Contd…

Typical variance density spectrum

 Wave Height Distribution of Irregular Waves
Contd…
The variance density spectrum gives a complete description of
the surface elevation of ocean waves in statistical sense,
provided that the surface elevation can be seen as a stationary
Gaussian process.

To use this approach, a wave record needs to be divided into

segments that are each assumed to be approximately stationary
(a duration of about 30 min is commonly used).

The sea surface elevation is a random function of time. Its total

variance is

   S f ( f ) df
2
0
 Wave Height Distribution of Irregular Waves
Contd…

The time-averaged total energy (potential plus kinetic energy)

of a regular wave per unit horizontal surface is
E  12  gAw2
Multiplying S f ( f ) by  g , the energy density spectrum is
obtained as

E f ( f )   gS f ( f )  1  g lim 1 ai2.
2 f 0 f
 Wave Height Distribution of Irregular Waves
Contd…
The variance density S f ( f ) was earlier defined in terms of
f  1 T (T is the period of the harmonic wave),
frequency (where
which can be formulated in terms of radian frequency
  2 f  2 T  d  2 df
Thus,
 
   S f ( f ) df   S ( ) d
2
0 0

1
S ( )  S f ( f ).
2

The overall appearance of the waves can be inferred

from the shape of the spectrum: the narrower the
spectrum, the more regular the waves are.
Density spectrums and wave profiles
 Wave Height Distribution of Irregular Waves
Contd…

When the random sea-surface elevation is treated as a

stationary, Gaussian process, then all statistical
characteristics are determined by the variance density
spectrum S f ( f ) .

These characteristics will be expressed in terms of the

moments of the spectrum (moment of order n)

mn   f n S f ( f )df (m  ..., 3,  2,  1, 0,1, 2,3,...).
0

For example, the mean-square or 2 

variance of surface elevation:    S f ( f ) df  m0 .
0
Significant wave height and mean wave period

The significant wave height H s is the mean value of the

highest one-third of wave heights in the wave record.

It is given approximately by H s  H m 0  4 m0

Several different definitions of “mean” period for irregular waves

are used.

One is the peak period T p  1 f p

Another is the energy period

m1 fp
Te 
m0
 Energy flux of irregular waves

g 2
Pwave  m1
4
Te  m1 m0
g 2 2 irregular
Pwave  Hs Te. waves
Hs  4 m0 64

2 Pwave in kW/m
g  9.8 ms
3 Pwave  0.490Hs2Te Hs in m
  1025kgm
Te in s
 DIFFERENT SEA SPECTRUM
The characteristics of the frequency spectra of sea waves have
been fairly well established through analyses of a large number
of wave records taken in various oceans and seas.

The spectra of fully developed waves in deep water can be

approximated by the Pierson-Moskowitz equation


S f ( f )  0.1688 H s2 Te 4 f 5 exp  0.675 (Te f )  4 

S ( )  262.6 H s2 Te 4 5 exp  1052 (Te  )  4 
Among others, the most common sea spectrum is the
JONSWAP spectrum, ITTC/ISSC Spectrum etc.
 Difference between
Pierson Moskowitz and JONSWAP and spectrums

JONSWAP- Joint North Sea Wave Observation Project

IITC- International Towing tank Conference
ISSC- International Ship Science Congress