Coastal Engineering Laboratory 
Ocean Engineering

Stéphan T. Grilli

Distinguished Professor and Chair
Department of Ocean Engineering
University of Rhode Island
Narragansett, RI 02882, USA

tel: (401) 874-6636;       fax. : (401) 874-6837;      http ://www.oce.uri.edu/~grilli
email : grilli@oce.uri.edu

Education : M.S. 1980 (civil engng.), M.S. 1983 (oceanography), Ph.D 1985 (hydraulic and ocean engng.), University of Liège (Belgium).
 

Résumé   Course syllabi   Current/Past research projects

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Main areas of research, work, and teaching

Coastal engineering (wave modeling and experiments, wave-structure-bottom interactions, wave breaking, freak waves, wave-induced sediment transport, tsunami impact, geohazards); numerical modeling of ship waves; numerical modeling (Boundary Element Method); porous and random media flows, multi-phase flows; underwater acoustic propagation/instrumentation (see résumé for detail : [work])

Experience

Stéphan T. Grilli, Distinguished Professor and Chair of Ocean Engineering, was educated at the University of Liège (Belgium), where he received an M.S. in civil engineering in 1980, an M.S. in physical oceanography in 1983 and a Ph.D. in Applied Sciences ( Hydraulic and Ocean Engineering ) in 1985. After two years as a research associate at the University of Liège, in 1987, he joined the Civil Engineering department (Ocean Engineering Group ) of the University of Delaware as a research assistant professor. He joined the faculty at URI in 1991 as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor in 1993 and to professor in 1998 (Details of : [positions] ).

Since 1983, Dr. Grilli traveled extensively. He was a visiting professor in Rabat (Morocco), in Santander (Spain), in Nantes (ECN) Toulon (LSEET, ISITV) and Nice (INLN) (France), Braunschweig (Germany), and an invited lecturer in China, Denmark, and England (Details of : [visiting positions]). He attended and made presentations at over 80 international meetings, most of them in foreign countries. Doing so, he delivered many invited lectures, and often served as a session chair ( Details of : [presentations]). In 1986, he received the University of Liège Alumni award and the Gustav Magnel award (Brussels), both for his Ph.D. dissertation, and the Fernand de Waele award in Brussels in 1990, for his post-doctoral research. He also received the Duesberg-Baily Foundation award in Verviers, in 1987, and the ATMA award in Paris, in 1984. In 1992, he was awarded the Estelle and Vincent Murphy Award for excellence in engineering by the URI College of Engineering (Details of : [awards]).

Over the past twenty years, Dr. Grilli, has gradually developed a specialization of his research and teaching interests in the general area of coastal engineering. Within this area, however, he has broad academic and research interests ranging from computational wave and fluid dynamics, coastal and surf-zone modeling and wave-structure interaction, to porous and poro-elastic media flows. He has thus designed and taught courses in hydromechanics, marine hydrodynamics, wave and advanced wave mechanics, littoral processes, coastal modeling, and wave structure-interaction (List of : [courses]; Details of : [courses]). Dr. Grilli is very involved with both the US and international coastal an ocean engineering research community. From 1996 to 2004, he served on the editorial board of the ASCE Journal of Waterways, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering and since 2003, he has served as associate editor of the International Journal of Offshore and Polar Engineering (IJOPE). Since 2001, he has been on the scientific committee of the ISOPE conference series, within which he served as the chairman of the Numerical Wave Tank group (2000-02) and since 2003 as the chairman of the Hydrodynamic Committee. Dr. Grilli has worked on long wave runup since the early 1990's and, since 1998, on tsunamis generated by underwater landslides. More recently, following the 12/26/04 Indian Ocean Tsunami, Dr. Grilli helped organize and participated in an expedition to the area of the epicenter of the 12/26/04 tsunami (SEATOS: summary, webpage). The expedition was featured in a 2h Discovery Channel special in December 2005. Follwoing this, Dr. Grilli's work was featured in various other TV or radio shows, as well as in many newspaper article and web posting. He has since been quite involved with the modeling of that event and the forcasting of tsunami hazard in the region, as well as in Northern USA. A short animation of modeling results for the 12/26/04 tsunami can be found in (1.5Gb) (See details at [tsunami]).

Over the past twenty-five years, Dr. Grilli has also maintained a strong research interest in the Boundary Element Method (BEM), both at the fundamental and application levels. In many of his research projects, he used the BEM to solve wave modeling and other flow problems, more recently in combination (or coupling) with other numerical methods such as VOF. Dr. Grilli has been involved as well with the international BEM research community. He serves on the editorial board of the journals : Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements (EABE, since 1989). He was co-Chairman and editor of the proceedings of BETECH90 (the 5th International Conference on Boundary Element Technology), and has been a regular member of scientific committees of international conference series devoted to boundary elements and computational modeling such as BEM (since 1990), and BETECH (since 1991). In 1990, he served as guest editor for a special issue of EABE on nonlinear wave analysis (Details of : [professional societies] [editorial board] [scientific committees]).

Research Sponsorship

Complete list of : [grants]     Current list of : [research projects]

Dr. Grilli's recent research activity has been supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the National Science Foundation (NSF), various state agencies, private foundations, and corporations. Dr. Grilli's recent research is primarily directed at wave analysis in coastal areas and wave interaction with submerged and emerged coastal structures, including wave-induced sediment transport around partly buried mines, freak wave generation and impact on structures, topographic wave breaking and properties of breaking waves, waves generated by FastShips (surface effect ships). A great deal of Dr. Grilli's recent of research is also related to tsunami generation (long waves) and tsunami propagation, and geohazard in coastal areas (more details in : [wave] [tsunami] ).

Over the yeras, Dr. Grilli developed several computer models using the BEM, initially for linear wave propagation, floating body dynamics in waves, and porous media flows. After joining the University of Delaware, in collaboration with Dr. Svendsen, he developed a two-dimensional (2D) computer model for nonlinear wave propagation over arbitrary bottom geometry, up to overturning and breaking in nearshore area. This model has since been undertaken many additional stages of both development and refinement and is now recognized as one of the state-of-the-art models (i.e., "Numerical Wave Tank") for calculating wave propagation, shoaling, breaking and runup. NSF supported the model documentation and maintenance. Since 1999, Dr. Grilli developed a three-dimensional (3D) fully nonlinear model using a higher-order BEM, which truly constitutes a Numerical Wave Tank (NWT). This 3D-NWT has been applied to a variety of wave generation and propagation problems (topographic wave shoaling and breaking, landslide tsunami generaiton, freak wave generation). Both the 2D- and 3D-NWTs have been coupled to other models solving Navier-Stokes (NS) equations (based on VOF or VOF-LES methods), to study post-breaking waves and wave induced sediment transport.

SeaGrant initially supported analyses, using the 2D model, of characteristics of shoaling and breaking (mostly solitary) waves over a beach in connection with surfzone dynamics, and NRL supported the application of the 2D model to periodic wave shoaling and breaking over arbitrary bottom topography. As part of an ONR project, the model was used to calculate periodic wave shoaling and breaking over beaches (with and without a bar) and develop Depth-Inversion-Algorithms for predicting the bottom topography in shallow water, based on characteristics of surface waves measured by remote sensing. NSF supported the applicaiton of the 3D model to landslide tsunami and freak wave generation. ONR suported the study of wave-induced sediment tranport. Various other problems (e.g., coupling, freak waves) were also tackled as part of international collaborations (LSEET, ENS-CACHANS,...). Dr. Grilli has maintained research collaborations with the University of Delaware ocean group, where laboratory experiments were performed at various stages of the 2D model validation. In 1998-99, while on sabbatical in France (University of Toulon and Institut Nonlineaire of Nice), Dr. Grilli developed the initial 3D version of his fully nonlinear breaking wave model, as well as worked on coupling the two-dimensional model to a VOF model for breaking and post-breaking waves. Various subsequent developments of both the 2D- and 3D-NWTS and applications of these to new problems, were then carried out in collaboration with French colleagues (see more details in : [wave]).

Dr. Grilli has investigated other directions for extending the above calculations to the analysis of ship wave resistance, kinematics of random waves, wave interaction with porous seabed and structures [porous], and tsunami generated by underwater landslides and slumps [tsunami]. In addition, since 1993, Dr. Grilli has broaden his interest to the study of other types of waves and interfacial motions. Under US Coast Guard and then MMS funding, he developed a model of oil containment by booms, including the study of Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities at the interface between oil and water [boom]. Under ONR funding, in collaboration with Dr. Stepanishen, he developed a BEM model for the underwater acoustic propagation in coastal regions [acoustics]. In collaboration with Dr. Spaulding, he participated in the implementation of a state-of-the-art linear wave model in a real time coastal forcasting system [COASTMAP].

Selected Publications (1998-2008)

Since 1980, Dr. Grilli has published over 14 chapters in books and edited books. He has published over 46 refereed journal articles, 93 refereed proceeding articles, 21 non-refereed proceedings articles and abstracts, and 26 research reports. Below is a list of selected publications of the past 10 years (see complete list in résumé by connecting below) :

Full lists of :   [chapters] [journal articles] [refereed proceedings] [non-refereed proceedings] [research reports]

1998 :

Grilli, S.T. and Hu, Z. 1998. A Higher-order Hypersingular Boundary Element Method for the Modeling of Vortex Sheet Dynamics. Engng. Analysis Boundary Elemt., 21 (2), 117-129. [pdf]  (944K)

Grilli, S.T. 1998 Depth Inversion in Shallow Water Based on Nonlinear Properties of Shoaling Periodic Waves. Coastal Engineering, 35(3), 185-209. [pdf]   (640K).

1999 :

Grilli, S.T. and Skourup, J. 1999. Depth inversion for nonlinear waves shoaling over a barred-beach. In Proc. 26th Intl. Conf. on Coastal Engineering (ICCE26, Copenhagen, Denmark, June 1998), 603-616.   [pdf]  (216K).

Grilli, S.T. and Horrillo, J. 1999. Shoaling of periodic waves over barred-beaches in a fully nonlinear numerical wave tank. Intl. J. Offshore and Polar Engng., 9(4), 257-263.   [pdf]  (1,000K).

Grilli, S.T. and Watts, P. 1999. Modeling of waves generated by a moving submerged body. Applications to underwater landslides. Engng. Analysis Boundary Elemt., 23, 645-656.    [pdf]  (318K).

2000:

Watts, P., Imamura, F., and Grilli, S.T. 2000. Comparing Model Simulations of Three Benchmark Tsunami Generation Cases. J. Science Tsunami Hazards, 18(2), 107-123.    [pdf]  (412K).

2001 :

Grilli, S.T., Guyenne, P. and Dias, F. 2001. A fully nonlinear model for three-dimensional overturning waves over arbitrary bottom. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids, 35(7), 829-867.   [pdf]  (737K).

Brandini, C. and S.T., Grilli 2001. Modeling of freak wave generation in a 3D-NWT. In Proc. 11th Offshore and Polar Engng. Conf. (ISOPE01, Stavanger, Norway, June 2001), Vol III, 124-131. [pdf]  (2,413K).

2002 :

Grilli, S.T., Vogelmann, S. and Watts, P. 2002. Development of a 3D Numerical Wave Tank for modeling tsunami generation by underwater landslides. Engng. Analysis Boundary Elemt. 26(4), 301-313.    [pdf]  (1,061K).

2003 :

Lachaume, C., Biausser, B., Grilli, S.T., Fraunié, P. and Guignard, S. 2003. Modeling of breaking and post-breaking waves on slopes by coupling of BEM and VOF methods. In Proc. 13th Offshore and Polar Engng. Conf. (ISOPE03, Honolulu, USA, May 2003), 353-359. [pdf]  (900K)

Watts, P. and Grilli, S.T., 2003. Tsunami Generation by Deformable Underwater Landslides. In Proc. 13th Offshore and Polar Engng. Conf. (ISOPE03, Honolulu, USA, May 2003), 364-371. [pdf]  (280K)

Grilli, S.T., Voropayev, S., Testik, F.Y. and Fernando, H.J.S., 2003. Numerical Modeling and Experiments of Wave Shoaling over Buried Cylinders in Sandy Bottom. In Proc. 13th Offshore and Polar Engng. Conf. (ISOPE03, Honolulu, USA, May 2003), 405-412. [pdf]  (448K)

Watts, P., S. T. Grilli, J. T. Kirby, G. J. Fryer, and Tappin, D. R. 2003. Landslide tsunami case studies using a Boussinesq model and a fully nonlinear tsunami generation model. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 3, 391-402. [pdf]  (1,200K)

2004:

Grilli, S.T., Gilbert, R., Lubin, P., Vincent, S., Legendre, D., Duvam, M., Kimmoun, O., Branger, H., Devrard, D., Fraunié, P., Abadie, S. 2004. Numerical modeling and experiments for solitary wave shoaling and breaking over a sloping beach. In Proc. 14th Offshore and Polar Engng. Conf. (ISOPE04, Toulon, France, May 2004), 306-312. [pdf]  (472K).

Biausser B., S.T. Grilli, Fraunié P. and Marcer, R., 2004. Numerical analysis of the internal kinematics and dynamics of three-dimensional breaking waves on slopes. Intl. J. Offshore and Polar Engng., 14(4), 247-256.   [pdf]  (5,000K).

2005 :

Day, S. J., P. Watts, S. T. Grilli and Kirby J.T., 2005. Mechanical Models of the 1975 Kalapana, Hawaii Earthquake and Tsunami. Marine Geology, 215(1-2), 59-92.   [pdf]  (1,900K).

Fochesato, C., Grilli, S. and Guyenne P., 2005. Note on non-orthogonality of local curvilinear co-ordinates in a three-dimensional boundary element method. Intl. J. Numer. Meth. In Fluids, 48, 305-324.    [pdf]  (316K).

Helluy Ph., Golay F., Caltagirone J.-P., Lubin P., Vincent S., Drevard D., Marcer R., Seguin N., Grilli S., Lesage A.-C. and Dervieux A., 2005. Numerical simulations of wave breaking. Math. Modeling and Numer. Analys., 39(3), 591-607. [pdf]  (372K).

Sung H.G. and Grilli S.T., 2005. Numerical Modeling of Nonlinear Surface Waves caused by Surface Effect Ships. Dynamics and Kinematics. In Proc. 15th Offshore and Polar Engng. Conf. (ISOPE05, Seoul, South Korea, June 2005), 3, 124-131. [pdf]  (1,800K).

Devrard D., Marcer R., Grilli S.T., Fraunié P. and Rey V., 2005. Experimental Validation of a Coupled BEM-Navier-Stokes Model for Solitary Wave Shoaliing and Breaking. In Proc. 5th Intl. on Ocean Wave Measurement and Analysis (WAVES 2005, Madrid, Spain, July 2005), IAHR Publication, paper 166, 10 pps.    [pdf]  (300K).

Sung H.G. and Grilli S.T., 2005. A Note on Accuracy and Convergence of a Third-order Boundary Element Method for Three Dimensional Nonlinear Free Surface Flows. J. Ships and Ocean Engineering, 40, 31-41. [pdf]  (772K).

Grilli, S.T. and P. Watts. 2005. Tsunami generation by submarine mass failure Part I : Modeling, experimental validation, and sensitivity analysis. J. Waterway Port Coastal and Ocean Engng., 131(6), 283-297.   [pdf]  (436K).

Watts, P., Grilli, S.T., Tappin D., and Fryer, G.J. 2005. Tsunami generation by submarine mass failure Part II : Predictive Equations and case studies. J. Waterway Port Coastal and Ocean Engng., 131(6), 298-310.    [pdf]  (408K).

2006 :

Guyenne, P. and Grilli, S.T. 2006. Numerical study of three-dimensional overturning waves in shallow water. J. Fluid Mechanics, 547, 361-388.    [pdf]  (1,600K).

Dalrymple, R.A., Grilli, S.T. and J.T. Kirby 2006. Tsunamis and challenges for accurate modeling. Oceanography, 19(1), 142-151.    [pdf]  (632K).

Sung H.G. and Grilli S.T. 2006. Combined Eulerian-Lagrangian or Pseudo-Lagrangian, Descriptions of Waves Caused by an Advancing Free Surface Disturbance. In Proc. 16th Offshore and Polar Engng. Conf. (ISOPE06, San Francisco, California, June 2006), 3, 487-494. [pdf]  (1.4M).

Corte, C. and Grilli S.T. 2006. Numerical Modeling of Extreme Wave Slamming on Cylindrical Offshore Support Structures. In Proc. 16th Offshore and Polar Engng. Conf. (ISOPE06, San Francisco, California, June 2006), 3, 394-401. [pdf]  (484K).

2007 :

Fochesato C., Grilli, S.T. and Dias F. 2007. Numerical modeling of extreme rogue waves generated by directional energy focusing. Wave Motion, doi:10.1016/j.wavemoti.2007.01.03, 44, 395-416. [pdf]  (1.4M).