Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), NSF NHERI 2025: Forces of Waterborne Debris on Elevated Coastal Structures

This project quantifies debris force data to understand its impact on elevated coastal structures. The analysis from this experiment can be reused to isolate different types of forces acting on the structure, allowing for further analysis of a specific type and using that as a basis for future experiments. This paper focuses on structural forces caused by hurricane-caused water inundation events. Similar experiments have been conducted with tsunami-type waves, but this paper delves into the damage seen in the hurricane belt of the US. The analysis in this paper can provide insight to coastal engineers whose focus is on hurricane and typhoon mitigation.