Making waves

Dr Tiziana Rossetto, from University College London's Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, unveiled the plans to develop the new tsunami generator, which will be capable of creating scaled-down versions of the devastating waves.

The UCL team will be working with marine engineering specialists HR Wallingford (HRW) throughout the project.

'Tsunami are water waves generated by earthquakes, underwater landslides, volcanic eruptions or major debris slides,' said Dr Rossetto.

'The waves travel across oceans with small vertical displacements and in open water you could easily bob over one without noticing. It’s when the waves approach the coastline, hit shallower water, slow down, and grow taller that you get the huge wall of water that people visualise when you mention a tsunami.

'The main gap in our knowledge is about what happens when the tsunami wave approaches the nearshore region and then runs inland. These flow processes cannot be simplified using mathematical models because of the complex interaction that takes place with beaches, sediment, coastal defences and then in and around buildings.