Tsunami simulator research project receives funds from ERC
The European Research Council, University College London (UCL) and HR Wallingford, a specialist hydraulic research consultancy, are collaborating to construct the largest tsunami simulator in Europe. It’s hoped the project will help scientists better understand the impact of these natural phenomena on buildings and coastal defences.
The facility, which received a €1.9m ERC Starting Grant, will be 70m long and 4m wide and will model the effects that tsunamis have on coast defences and how water is channelled around clusters of buildings. The generator will also be used to evaluate whether flood and coastal defences are effective, or whether they amplify destructiveness by allowing flood waters to build up in front of defences and then, when they fail, suddenly inundate areas behind, causing more devastation to areas previously thought to be safe.
Professor Tiziana Rossetto, professor of earthquake engineering at UCL who is leading the research, said: “Tsunamis can be exceptionally destructive when they hit buildings, yet we really don’t know a great deal about how the massive horizontal forces they generate act on buildings to cause damage.”
The new simulator works to produce a tsunami using a pneumatic system adapted from methods to make tides in hydraulic models, and similar to that used for some large leisure or surfing pools. The new facility will improve and extend the technique where both crest-led and trough-led tsunamis can be generated in a laboratory setting.
Rossetto added: “Our research at the facility will have far-reaching implications for both building and urban design in areas at risk of tsunamis, and could help mitigate some of the most devastating risks of the phenomena to both human lives and the land they depend on.”
