Entrainment and Transport Dynamics of Shipping Containers in Extreme Hydrodynamic Conditions

An experimental study was performed to examine multiple debris entrainment and transport in tsunami-like flow conditions. The study was performed in the Tsunami Wave Basin at Waseda University. The wave basin used a falling-head driven elongated solitary wave that broke at the edge of a horizontal apron to generate a tsunami-like surge. The debris, modeled as scaled-down (1:40 length scale) 20-foot standard shipping containers, was placed on the horizontal apron. The debris was tracked using a camera-based object tracking algorithm. The study examined the effect of the debris configuration, the number of debris, and orientation of debris on the entrainment and transport within the inundating surge. In examining the transport of multiple debris, the debris tended to be transported within the surge as an agglomeration. Using a previously derived model of debris transport, the study determined experimentally derived coefficients to explain the difference in debris transport between various configurations.