Experimental investigations of tsunami loading on internal wall of a building with various openings and wall configurations

Previous studies demonstrated an introduction of building opening could decrease the tsunami loads on the external wall. However, tsunami waves flowing through the building opening could induce loads on the interior part. This study presented an experimental investigation of tsunami flow through a real building with opening. Three nominal wave conditions with wave overtopping and non-overtopping cases were tested to study its effects in combination with each configuration with opening sizes ranging from 15% to 35%. The tsunami-like wave pressures on an internal wall with varying locations were measured in the experiment. Finally, methodologies for estimating tsunami force on an internal wall were proposed. Results showed that the front opening size and the location of an internal wall significantly influenced the induced loads on the internal wall's front face. A new measure of the wake clearance angle was developed to best quantify each configuration. The maximum front face force on an internal wall manifested a linear trend with an increasing wake clearance angle up to a maximum force of approximately 4.8 times the hydrostatic force. Conversely, a dimensionless factor of front to back opening ratio was proposed, considering the effect of both front and back openings to determine the force on an internal wall's back face, where an increase in the front to back ratio tended to increase the maximum back face force in a non-linear trend. •Effect of opening and wall configurations on tsunami force acting on internal wall.•A new measure of wake clearance angle for best quantifying each configuration.•A dimensionless factor of front to back opening ratio is proposed.