Analysis and Applications of Second-Order Models for Maximum Crest Height

Abstract

Expressions for the maximum crest height are reviewed and tested on data from five different sensors in the WACSIS data set. The overall agreement is good and the analysis supports that second-order models give accurate expressions for the distribution of the maximum crest height for varying water depth and wave steepness. In the second part of the paper, the expressions are combined with the existing extreme crest and wave height framework and applied to sets of time series and long term wave data. It is concluded that the second-order models represent a definite improvement over earlier empirical parametrizations.