WAVE OVERTOPPIMG EQUATION

Abstract

In the early 1950's the Corps of Engineers' Jacksonville District initiated a series of laboratory tests to investigate the overtopping of proposed levee sections for Lake Okeechobee, Florida. For economic reasons, the alternative to build levees with crest elevations that were at times below the limit of wave runup was investigated and the quantities of water carried over the structures for various freeboard allowances, structure slopes and wave conditions determined. The initial tests were conducted at the Waterways Experiment Station (WES) in Vieksburg, Mississippi for the Jacksonville District at what was taken to be a 1 to 30 model scale. Model wave heights varied from 1+.05 cm to 12.2 cm (0.133 to 0.^0 ft). In order to expand the range of test conditions investigated, the Beach Erosion Board, currently the Coastal Engineering Research Center (CERC), commissioned an expanded series of tests that considered the overtopping of riprap faced, curved and stepped seawalls as well as the overtopping of "smooth" slopes. These tests, also conducted at WES, were considered to be at a 1 to 17 scale with model wave heights ranging from 5-36 cm to 21.5 cm (0.176 to O.706 ft). A number of tests were subsequently conducted in CERC's large wave tank to determine the influence scale effects might have on overtopping. These tests are referred to as 1 to 2 1/2 scale tests. The model wave heights investigated ranged from U8.8 cm to 11*0.2 cm. (1.60 to h.6o ft).