OCE421 Marine Structure Design: Midterm Exam, Fall 2014

October 27, 2014

(Two-sided; open one-page notes; 75 minutes)
1. (10 points) State the definitions of H1/3 , Hmo , and Hs . Provide the analytical relationship between them.
2. (10 points) When the random wave height H is modeled to be Rayleigh distributed with H1/3 equal to 4 meters,
write the corresponding cumulative distribution function (cdf) and probability density function (pdf) of H.
3. (10 points) The P-M (Pierson-Moskowitz) wave spectrum in term of wind speed is written as:
S (f ) =

B
g 2
exp( 4 )
(2)4 f 5
f

where = 8.1 103 (Philip constant), B = 0.74(g/2U )4 and U = wind speed parameter.
(a) Show how to compute the variance of the random wave elevation (t)
(b) Show how to obtain the P-M model in terms of . ( = 2f )
(c) Determine the dimension (unit) of S ().
4. (20 points) At a wave data station, the hourly Hmo data is available for 25 years.
(a) It is assumed that the semi-annual (every 6 months) maximal Hmo has been extracted. State the procedure
to assign a cumulative probability to each semi-annual maximal Hmo .
(b) A Weibull model has the cumulative distribution function (cdf) as:
 
 
h1
F (h) = 1 exp

h1

While fitting the semi-annual maximal Hmo data for a Weibull probability model, state a procedure to
estimate the two parameters: and .
(c) Based on the fitting Weibull probability model, when the semi-annual maximal Hmo are 3 and 5 meters, the
corresponding cumulative probabilities are equal to 0.5 and 0.95, respectively; estimate the corresponding
Hmo with a return period equal to 50 years.
5. (10 points) If a discrete wave elevation time signal (tn ), tn = nt, n = 0, 1, , N , is given, state the procedure
to obtain the corresponding wave heights: H1/3 and Hrms . If a Rayleigh distribution model is assumed for the
random wave height, state the procedure to compute H1/3 and Hrms .
6. (10 points) If the cumulative distribution function (cdf) of a random wave quantity (such as wave height, wave
runup, etc), R, is modeled by the following Weibull distribution
 

r 2.2
FR (r) = 1 exp
,
r0
2.1
(a) Compute r5% , where r5% is defined as Probability(R > r5% ) =5%.
(b) What is the probability of R > 3?
7. (10 points) For the regular ocean surface elevation with the form


H
2t
(t) =
sin
2
T
(a) compute the variance of (t) analytically
(b) show the wave energy per unit surface area

t0

8. (10 points) A random sea state is composed of many wave components with different frequencies and directions.
It has been shown that the estimation of the effective refraction coefficient associated with a random sea at a
shallow water location is
#1/2
" R R max
2
2
(f
)K
(f,
)
ddf
S(f,
)K
s
r
min
(Kr )eff = 0 R
R max
S(f, )Ks2 (f ) ddf
min
0
(a) Define S(f, ), Ks (f ) and Kr (f, )
(b) What is the main purpose of calculating (Kr )eff for the costal structure design?
9. (10 points) Formulate the boundary value problem for solving the linear wave theory, including the governing
differential equation, the boundary conditions, and the domain of interest.