Wave overtopping is a key parameter on the breakwater design, since it affects the hydraulic stability, the port operativity and also generates risks to the facilities, vehicles and pedestrians. However, the maximum individual wave overtopping volume, Vmax, can be much larger than the mean wave overtopping rate, q, and it is a better variable to evaluate the direct hazards.
The prediction tools of q and Vmax are mainly based on laboratory tests, where q is registered much more easily than individual wave overtopping volumes. However, few of these studies detail the methodology to identify the number of overtopping waves and the associated individual wave overtopping volumes.
In this study, a fully automatic detection methodology of the individual wave overtopping waves and volumes is developed using 2D physical tests. The performance of the 2-parameter Weibull distributions to estimate Vmax is analyzed here with four utility functions to weight the data, f(u).
