Undergraduate Research Experience (REU), NHERI 2019: Progressive Damage Assessment of On-Slab and Elevated Structures from Storm Surge and Waves Using LiDAR in a Laboratory Wave Basin

In the experiment conducted in the O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory’s Directional Wave Basin, one on-slab and one elevated 1:6 scale light-frame wood specimens with identical superstructures were subjected to increasing water depths and wave heights until failure. Using terrestrial light detection and ranging (LiDAR) scans conducted during the experiment, point clouds showing progressive damage to the light-frame wood specimens were collected. Progressive damage rate and cumulative damage fraction as the houses were destroyed by storm surge and wave conditions were calculated using wall models fitted to the point clouds through Leica Cyclone’s RANSAC algorithm and manual processing.