Dynamic response of an embankment foundation to a simulated tsunami wave

Abstract

The interaction between tsunami waves and an embankment is a complicated coastline phenomena and one of the least studied aspects of a tsunami disaster. When the tsunami wave breaks and hits the surface of a dike, the impact pressure, characterized by high intensity, repeated application and short duration, may cause the destabilization of the embankment and the liquefaction of its foundation. The hydrodynamic loads on a dike are therefore of considerable interest for the safety and design of dike foundations. The present paper estimates the collision forces on an embankment due to tsunami waves with the application of the moving particle semi-implicit (MPS) method, which has the advantage of tracking water free surfaces with the fragmentation and coalescence of water due to the absence of numerical diffusion. MPS is a mesh-free, purely Lagrangian particle method, where the discretization of the Navier-Stokes equation is based on the interaction of neighboring particles. The results are in agreement with the smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulation, which indicates that the MPS method is good at describing the interaction of tsunami waves and the dike. The impact of the tsunami waves on the dike is visualized and presented, providing qualitative understanding of the interaction between the tsunami and the embankment. In addition, we obtain hydrodynamic load data and analyze the stress distribution at the bottom of the foundation, which is under the highest load. The simulation can provide some valuable insight for the conceptual design of coastal defense facilities.