Crest height statistics of storm waves in deep water

Abstract

This paper presents wave crest statistics for storm waves in deep water obtained from data collected over the last 7 years using wave altimeters mounted on the North Alwyn fixed oil and gas platform in the northern North Sea. The evolution of wave characteristics during the rise, peak and, decay of storms has been examined and it has been found that, as storms develop, there tends to be a focusing of the directional energy as the peak of the storm is approached followed by a directional defocusing as it decays. The effect of this upon the normalized crest elevations has been examined and sample distributions of crest heights taken from the start, peak and end of storms show some differences that are discussed. Three crest elevation probability distribution models based on second-order wave theory have been examined using these data and found to produce quite good predictions of observed crest heights except in the most extreme values.

Keywords

storm waves directional spectrum crest height statistics second-order wave models

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Forristall

G Z

Barstow

S F

Krogstad

H E

Prevosto

Taylor

P H

Tromans

Wave crest sensor intercomparison study: An overview of WACSIS. In Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on

Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering, Oslo, Norway, 23–28 June 2002, paper OMAE 28438.

Prevosto

Forristall

G Z

Statistics of wave crests from models vs. measurements. In Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on

Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering, Oslo, Norway, 23–28 June 2002, paper OMAE 28443.

Prevosto

Effect of directional spreading and spectral bandwidth on the nonlinearity of the irregular waves, In Proceedings of the 8th International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference, Montreal, Canada, 24–29 May 1998, Vol. III, pp. 119–123.

Wolfram

Linfoot

B T

Venugopal

Evolution of wave characteristics due to storms in North Sea. In Proccedings of the International Conference on

Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India, 11–14 December 2001, pp. 109–114.

Krkbel

D L

Dawson

T H

Nonlinearity in wave crest statistics. In Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on

Ocean Wave Measurement and Analysis, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1993, pp. 61–75 (American Society of Civil Engineers, New York).

Forristall

G Z

Wave crest distributions: Observations and second-order theory

J. Phys. Oceanogr., 2000, 30 (8), 1931–1943.

Wolfram

Feld

Allen

A new approach to estimating extreme environmental loading using joint probabilities. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on

The Behaviour of Offshore Structures, 1994, Vol. 2, 701–714.

Tucker

M J

Waves in Ocean Engineering, 1991 (Ellis Horwood, Chichester, West Sussex).

Brodtkorb

P A

Johannesson

Lindgren

Rychilk

Ryden

Sjo

WAFO—a Matlab Toolbox for analysis of random waves and loads. In Proceedings of the 10th International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference, Seattle, Washington, 28 May-2 June 2000, Vol. III, pp. 343–350.

10.

Benoit

Goasguen

Comparative evaluation of directional wave analysis techniques applied to field measurements. In Proceedings of the 9th International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference, Brest, France, 30 May-4 June 1999, Vol. III, pp. 87–94.

11.

Longuet-Higgins

M S

The statistical analysis of a random moving surface

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A, 1957, 249, 321–387.

12.

Haring

R E

Heideman

J C

Gulf of Mexico rare wave return periods. In Proceedings of the Offshore Technology Conference, 1978, paper OTC 3230, pp. 1537–1550.

13.

Jahns

H O

Wheeler

J D

Long-term wave probabilities based on hindcasting of severe storms

J. Petrol. Technol., 1973, 473–486.

14.

Tayfun

M A

Narrow-band nonlinear sea waves

J. Geophys Res., 1980, 85, 1548–1552.

15.

Huang

N E

Bliven

L F

Long

S R

Tung

C C

An analytical model for oceanic whitecap coverage

J. Phys. Oceanogr., 1986, 16, 1597–1604.

16.

Krlebel

D L

Dawson

T H

Nonlinear effects on wave groups in random seas

J. Offshore Mechanics Arctic Engng, 1991, 113, 142–147.

17.

Prevosto

Statistics of wave crest from second order irregular wave 3D models. In Proceedings of the Conference on

Rogue Waves 2000, Le Quartz, Brest, France, 29–30 November 2000, pp. 59–72.

18.

Vartal

Krogstad

H E

Barstow

S F

Measurements of wave properties in extreme seas during the WADIC experiment. In Proceedings of the 21st Annual Offshore Technology Conference, 1989, paper OTC 5964, pp. 73–82.

19.

Stansell

Wolfram

Linfoot

B T

Statistics of wave groups measured in the northern North Sea: Comparisons between time series and spectral predictions

Appl. Ocean Res., 2002, 24 (2), 91–106.

20.

Taylor

P H

Gibba

R H

Wave focussing on deep water-bandwidth, spreading and non-linearity. In Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on

Wave Hindcasting and Forecasting, Banff, Alberta, Canada, 21–25 October 2002.