Laboratory experiments for tsunamis generated by underwater landslides Comparison with nume.pdfVIP

Paper No. 2003-SG-15 Enet 1 Laboratory Experiments for Tsunamis Generated by Underwater Landslides: Comparison with Numerical Modeling Fran?ois Enet 1, Stéphan T. Grilli 1 and Philip Watts 2 1. Department of Ocean Engineering, University of Rhode Island, Narragansett, RI, USA 2. Applied Fluids Engineering, Inc., Long Beach, CA, USA ABSTRACT Three-dimensional experiments and fully nonlinear computations are performed at the University of Rhode Island, to investigate tsunami generation by underwater landslides. Each experiment consists of a solid landslide of idealized smooth shape sliding over a plane slope. Surface elevations are measured using very accurate gages placed at strategic locations. Gage calibration is performed using a newly developed automated system. Landslide acceleration is measured with a micro-accelerometer. The repeatability of experiments is first investigated, and then by varying the initial depth of the landslide, different conditions of wave non-linearity and dispersion are generated and compared. The principle of numerical modeling, using an earlier developed model, is briefly explained. One application is presented and results compared to experiments. The agreement of computations with the latter is quite good. In the model, horizontal velocities are found quite non-uniform over depth above the moving landslide. This would preclude using a long wave model for such landslide tsunami wave generation. KEY WORDS: Tsunamis; landslides; experiments; numerical wave tank; Boundary Element Method. INTRODUCTION For many coastal areas, underwater landslides represent one of the most dangerous mechanisms for tsunami generation. Whereas tsunamis directly generated by coseismic displacement are generally of small amplitude, and correlate well with moment magnitude, tsunamis generated by submarine landslides are only limited by the vertical extent of landslide motion (Murty, 1979; Watts 1997, 1998). Moreover, underwater landslides can be triggered by mode