TANTA UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT OF IRRIGATION AND HYDRAULICS ENGINEERING
Examination of master’s degree level (MODEL ANSWER)
Course Title: Wave Hydrodynamics Course Code: CIH619
Date: 20/6/2019 Term: Second 2018/2019 Time Allowed: 3 Hours
Notes:
• Any missing data should be reasonably assumed.
• Coastal and Harbor Engineering Charts and Tables are ALLOWED.
• The exam consists of Four questions in Three pages.
• Systematic arrangements of calculations and neat clear drawings are essential.

Question No. 1
A. Define: Zero-moment, regular waves, directional spreading function and swell.

Zero-moment: The area under the spectral curve of the wave frequency spectrum.

Regular wave: A wave that has the same height and period and propagates in the same direction.

Directional spreading function: Angular (directional) distribution of wave energy within a sea state

swell: waves generated within the dispersed area far away from the generation area and
characterized with narrow-banded spectrum in both frequencies and directions (long crested
waves).

B. Explain: Tidal daily inequality, tidal range, storm surge and tidal currents.

Tidal daily inequality: The moon is not in the plane of the equator but has a declination with respect to
the equator. This results in a bulge of the equilibrium tide that lie above the equator at one side and another
bulge below the equator on the other side. An observer moving along a constant latitude would experience
two tides per day of unequal height. This is called daily inequality which increases with latitude.

Tidal range: The difference in height between consecutive high and low (or higher high and lower low)
water levels.

Storm-Surge: It is an increase in water level resulting from wind-induced surface shear stress over the
ocean surface and pressure fluctuations. It is frequently produced by the action of tropical cyclones/
typhoons and hurricanes.

Tidal currents: The currents produced in response to differences in water surface elevation and
they may be ebb or flood currents, leaving or entering a bay or an estuary, respectively

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C. A tsunami wave has a period of 40 minutes and a height of 0.65 m at a point where the ocean has a
depth of 5.5 km deep. Find the wavelength, celerity, group velocity, wave energy and wave
power at that depth. Additionally, compute wave height, celerity and length in a coastal water
depth of 10 m accounting for shoaling effects only.

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D. For a specific sea state, the wave frequency spectrum obtained from a buoy is given as follows:
f (Hz) 0.04 0.05 0.067 0.09 0.1 0.12 0.17 0.25
S(f) m2. s 0 7 X 10 15 6 3 0
If the sea state consists of 1000 waves and the maximum wave height is 7.5 m, it required to compute:
(1) Significant wave height and the spectral density (X).
(2) Peak wave period and estimate the mean wave period
(3) Root mean squared wave height and the average wave height.
(4) Find the maximum wave height for a 2500-wave sea state.
(5) The wave height exceeded only by 1% of the waves.
(6) The probability of occurrence of waves with height equal to or less than 2.5 and 0.5 m

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Question No. 2
A. Define: Fetch limited waves, Prevailing wind, Beaufort scale, Harbor resonance, extreme value
analysis, short-term wave analysis and return period.

Fetch limited waves: Waves that are generated when the fetch length limits the size of the generated
waves, but not the storm duration.

Prevailing wind: The wind that blows from a specific direction for the longest period throughout a time
interval (years), and its direction is known as the Prevailing Wind Direction (PWD). They could be obtained
from the Wind Rose.

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Beaufort scale: A scale used to classify winds into 13 types based the wind speed, varying from
calm winds to very strong hurricanes.

Harbor resonance: Resonance occurs when the dominant wave frequencies of the external forcing
match the natural free oscillation frequencies of the harbor basin. It causes an amplification of the
wave height at the antinodes of the harbor basin that almost disrupt harbor activities.

Extreme value analysis: Distribution and analysis of the extreme values of the significant wave
height for long periods (years, decades).

Short-term wave analysis: Analysis of wave characteristics within a Sea State, a

storm or a short duration of wave records (hours).

Return period: Return period is defined as the average time interval (years) between two
successive events of the design wave being equaled or exceeded.

B. Using JONSWAP nomograms, it is required to complete the following table:

𝑈𝐴 (m/sec) X (km) t (hours) 𝐻𝑠 (m) 𝑇𝑝 (sec) Type of generated waves

15 50 7 1.7 5.7 Fetch-limited waves
10 80 3 0.71 3.6 Duration-limited waves
14 90 8 2.2 6.8 Fetch-limited waves
30 30 4 2.6 6 Fetch-limited waves
16 800 24 6.1 13 Duration-limited waves
18 50 4.7 2 6 Fetch-Duration-limited waves
17 420 20 5.5 12 Fetch-Duration-limited waves
17.8 80 6.4 2.5 7 Fetch-Duration-limited waves

C. If the adjusted wind speed is 30 knots, find the wind friction velocity and the drag coefficient
and compute the wind speed blowing 14 m over the ocean surface.

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Question No. 3
A. Explain and differentiate between the following:
i- Wave shoaling, wave refraction, wave diffraction and wave breaking.
Wave shoaling: It is a consequence of the conservation of the energy flux when waves
approach perpendicular to a straight shoreline. If the energy flux must be conserved and the water
depth decreases, the wave height must increase. This phenomenon is defined as wave shoaling.

Wave refraction: Transformation of wave characteristics (height, direction) due to changes in

wave celerity generated by changes in water depth

Wave diffraction: Lateral transfer of wave energy along wave crests due to gradients in wave height.
It generates a typical circular wave crest pattern behind breakwaters.

Wave breaking: When wave steepness exceeds a physical limit, the particles’ velocities at the wave
crest will be greater than the wave celerity. As a result, waves will start to break and in so doing will
dissipate a part of their energy. At breaking, wave energy is dissipated by turbulence and wave height
decreases suddenly and that identifies the breaking point location.

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ii- When and why the concept of the directional spectrum should be included in wave
transformation calculations.
Precisely, the directional wave spectrum should be propagated from offshore to the coast.
Each frequency and direction component in the spectrum will shoal, refract and diffract
differently.

The monochromatic refraction/shoaling coefficient is higher than that coefficient for the
directional spectrum. However, the difference is generally less than 5 percent (very slight).
Thus, the refraction-shoaling of monochromatic approach is approach practically accepted
and employed in engineering design.

For diffraction analysis, the difference between using the monochromatic wave approach and
the directional spectrum is significant. Consequently, the random wave diffraction concept is
more accurate and produces more reliable results.

B. The directional wave spectrum of a sea travelling shoreward is characterized with a significant
wave height of 1.8 meters in deep waters, a peak period of 14 seconds and a mean wave
direction of N30E. The shoreline is oriented in the East-West direction with a bathymetry of
straight parallel contours. At 800 meters cross-shore, a detached breakwater is constructed
parallel to the shoreline to protect the beach. Waves approach the structure head with a
direction of N12E. Determine:
1- The slope of the nearshore bathymetry.
2- The wave height at a point 350 m behind the breakwater and 300 along it.
3- The breaking height and the breaking depth far away from the diffraction extent zone.
Consider that the wave direction at breaking is N4E degrees.
4- Compute the surf similarity parameter and detect the breaker type.

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Question No. 4
A vertical breakwater has been constructed to protect a marina and to moor the ships leeward it.
The considerations to design the structure are as follows:
• Wave breaking is not expected.
• Ships cannot be moored if the exceedance probability for a 1.7 m wave height of a sea state
is 15%.
• The long-term cumulative density function at the toe of the structure is:

𝑷(𝑯𝒔 ) = 𝟏 − 𝒆𝒙𝒑(−(𝟏. 𝟎𝟓 𝑯𝒔 )𝟏.𝟑𝟎 )

• Waves follow a Rayleigh distribution.

• The extreme value long term cumulative density function at the toe of the structure is:

𝑯𝒔 −𝟑.𝟏𝟓
𝑷𝒆𝒙 (𝑯𝒔 ) = 𝒆𝒙𝒑(−𝒆𝒙𝒑( ))
−𝟎.𝟗𝟓

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• The structure freeboard (height above the mean sea level) is calculated using the wave,
which has probability of 0.5% to be exceeded within the design sea state.
• The design sea state is defined considering a structure life cycle of 50 years and a failure
probability for the life cycle of 20%.
• The design sea state will be considered 900 waves long with a duration of 2 hours.

It is required to:
1. Determine the marina operability (number of hours/year that the ships can be moored).
2. Calculate the significant wave height for the design sea state.
3. Calculate the wave height to be used to calculate the structure freeboard.
4. Calculate the wave height to be used in the stability analysis of the breakwater considering
that the calculation is done with the maximum wave height in the design sea state.
5. Compute the wave peak period of the design sea state considering that (Tm = 0.82 Tp).

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