This is a textbook aimed at graduate students and offshore engineering practitioners that covers basic fluid mechanics and the deterministic and statistical descriptions of infinitesimal and finite amplitude water waves. It reviews the theory of wave loading on structures and closes with a chapter on the potential of ocean wave energy and devices for extracting it. Since the 1980s there has been tremendous progress in numerical and physical modelling of coastal and offshore structures in waves. This calls for a clear understanding of the phenomena of wave generation, propagation, deformation and its effects on marine structures. This book will help the reader to understand the many results and descriptions found in journals, reports and research papers. It is self-contained, and encompasses the fundamentals of the subject with sufficient description and illustrations.

An introduction to classical water wave theory for college seniors or first-year graduate students. Almost all the necessary mathematical and engineering concepts are either presented or derived in the text, making it also useful as a reference for practicing engineers. Paper edition (0421-3), $28. Acidic paper. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Intended for coastal engineers and marine scientists who desire to develop a fundamental physical understanding of ocean waves and be able to apply this knowledge to ocean and coastal analysis and design. Provides an introduction to the physical processes of ocean wave mechanics, an understanding of the basic techniques for wave analysis, techniques for practical calculation and prediction of waves and applied wave forecasting.

In a unitary way, this monograph deals with a wide range of subjects related to the mechanics of sea waves. The book highlights recent theoretical results on the dynamics of random wind-generated waves, on long-term wave statistics, and on beach planform evolution. A fresh approach is given to more traditional concepts. For example, new evidence from a recent series of small-scale field experiments is used to introduce some crucial topics like wave forces. Also, the book gives some worked examples for the design of offshore or coastal structures. An exciting subject dealt with in the book is the quasi-deterministic mechanics of three-dimensional wave groups in sea storms, and the loads exerted by these wave groups on offshore structures. The text is intended for researchers and graduate students in ocean engineering, but may also be understood by undergraduates. The more complex concepts are explained with examples or more extensive case studies.

Wave Mechanics and Wave Loads on Marine Structures provides a new perspective on the calculation of wave forces on ocean structures, unifying the deterministic and probabilistic approaches to wave theory and combining the methods used in field and experimental measurement. Presenting his quasi-determinism (QD) theory and approach of using small-scale field experiments (SSFEs), author Paolo Boccotti simplifies the findings and techniques honed in his ground-breaking work to provide engineers and researchers with practical new methods of analysis. Including numerous worked examples and case studies, Wave Mechanics and Wave Loads on Marine Structures also discusses and provides useful FORTRAN programs, including a subroutine for calculating particle velocity and acceleration in wave groups, and programs for calculating wave loads on several kinds of structures.

Extreme, freak or rogue waves are produced by a number of physical mechanisms that focus the water-wave energy into a small area, due to wave instability, chaotic behaviour, dispersion (frequency modulation), refraction (presence of variable currents or bottom topography), soliton interactions, etc. During the past thirty years a number of physical models of the rogue wave phenomenon have been intensively developed. Numerous experimental, statistical and theoretical investigations are intended to understand the physics of the huge wave formation, its relation to the environmental conditions and to provide a freak wave design for engineering purposes. The book details the vast progress that has been achieved in the understanding of the physical mechanisms of rogue wave phenomenon in recent years. The selected articles address such issues as the formation of freak waves due to modulation instability of nonlinear wave field, physical and statistical properties of rogue wave generation in deep water and in shallow water, various models of nonlinear water waves, special analysis of nonlinear resonances between water waves and the relation between observations and freak wave theories. The book is written for specialists in the fields of fluid mechanics, applied mathematics, nonlinear physics, physical oceanography and geophysics, and for students learning these subjects.