• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.263-269
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• 2018

Changes in water depth caused by underwater earthquakes and landslides cause sea surface undulations, which in turn propagate to the coast and result in significant damage as wave heights normally increase due to the wave shoaling process. Various types of numerical models have been developed to simulate the generation and propagation of tsunami waves. Most of tsunami models determine the initial surface of the water based on the assumption that the movement of the seabed is immediately and identically transmitted to the sea surface. However, this approach does not take into account the characteristics of underwater earthquakes that occur with time history and spatial variation. Thus, such an incomplete description on the initial generation of tsunami waves is totally reflected in the error during the simulation. In this study, the analytical solution proposed by Hammack (1973) was applied in the tsunami model in order to simulate the generation of initial water surface elevation by the change of water depth with time history and its propagation. The developed solution is expected to identify the relationship among various type of seabed motions, initial surface undulations, and wave speeds of elevated water surfaces.