Cairo University Coastal and Harbor Eng.

Faculty of Engineering Fourth Year

Dept. of Irrigation and Hydraulics 2013

EXERCISE 3
Wave Analysis

(1) The significant wave height at a particular site was found from observations to be
2.9m. Find the following (assuming a Rayleigh distribution):
(a) Average wave height, H1/10, Hrms
(b) How many waves are expected to exceed 2.6m?
(c) What height is exceeded by half the waves?

(2) For the following wave record find:

(a) Hs and Hrms
(b) The average wave height.
(c) Compare the relation between Hs and Hrms to their corresponding relation
assuming a Rayliegh distribution.

H(m) 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5
No. of waves 4 7 10 19 9 6 5 3 2

(3) For the wave record provided in Fig. 3.1 determine the wave height and period for
the first 10 waves using zero up-crossing waves.
Wave Analysis Exercise 3

100
75

t (sec)
-0.5 0 50
25
2.5

0.5
1.5

-1.5
2

-2
-1

W.L. (m)

Figure 3.1: Wave Record for Problem 3.

3-2
Wave Analysis Exercise 3

(4) The following table shows the peak over threshold (threshold of 1.5 m) wave
heights recorded at a location extracted from hourly records covering 31 years.
Using a Weibull distribution (=1.2), find the wave heights for return periods of
25, 50 and 100 years.

H (m) No. of Hours

1.501-1.750 1029
1.751-2.000 541
2.001-2.250 382
2.251-2.500 254
2.501-2.750 174
2.751-3.000 112
3.001-3.250 81
3.251-3.500 50
3.501-3.750 39
3.751-4.000 27
4.001-4.250 19
4.251-4.500 9
4.501-4.750 4
4.751-5.000 2
5.001-5.250 1
5.251-5.500 2
5.501-5.750 1

3-3