The effect of beach slope on the tsunami run-up induced by thrust fault earthquakes

AbstractAnalytical methods for studying tsunami run-up become untenable when the tsunami wave runs on beaches. In this study, we use a finite-element procedure that includes the interaction between solid and fluid based on the potential flow theory to simulate the dynamics of tsunami wave induced by a thrust fault earthquake in order to investigate the effect of different beach slopes on the tsunami run-up. The simulated run-up shows significantly differences from that predicted by the analytical solution. The maximum run-up shows a negative linear relationship with the square root of the cotangent of the beach slope, similar to the result of the analytical solution using a solitary wave as the incident wave, but with different slopes and amplitudes