Wirewall a follow up: Laboratory and field measurements of wave overtopping

At the Protections 2018 conference, the WireWall wave overtopping research project was introduced. WireWall uses recent advances in high frequency capacitance wire technology that can measure overtopping data. Wave overtopping has now been measured in the laboratory and in the field using the WireWall system. Here we provide an update on the validation of the system in flume tests and results from the first field measurement campaign. Before deployment in the field, an extensive set of tests were carried out in one of the 2D wave flumes at HR Wallingford. These tests simulated known wave conditions from a buoy near the field measurement site, and a representation of the sea wall at the site. The structure (shown in Figure 1) underwent extensive testing and was used to validate the WireWall rig. Using traditional methods of assessing wave overtopping in the flume, the WireWall measurements were directly validated against the known volumes collected in the overtopping tanks. The WireWall field system was deployed at Crosby, Liverpool during the winter of 2018/19, where waves regularly overtop the sea wall. Comparison between the WireWall measurements and the BayonetGPE predictions for one of the Crosby deployments shows good agreement, with the predictions and the WireWall measurements being within the uncertainties estimated for the BayonetGPE predictions.