1 Introduction 



Background 



The U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station (WES), Coastal 

 Engineering Research Center's (CERC's) Field Research Facility (FRF), 

 located on 0.7 km 2 at Duck, NC (Figure 1), consists of a 561-m-long research 

 pier and accompanying office and field support buildings. The FRF is located 

 near the middle of Currituck Spit along a 100-km unbroken stretch of shore- 

 line extending south of Rudee Inlet, VA, to Oregon Inlet, NC. The FRF is 

 bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and Currituck Sound to the west. 

 The facility is designed to (a) provide a rigid platform from which waves, 

 currents, water levels, and bottom elevations can be measured, especially 

 during severe storms; (b) provide CERC with field experience and data to 

 complement laboratory and analytical studies and numerical models; (c) pro- 

 vide a manned field facility for testing new instrumentation; and (d) serve as a 

 permanent field base of operations for physical and biological studies of the 

 site and adjacent region. 



The research pier is a reinforced concrete structure supported on 0.9-m- 

 diam steel piles spaced 12.2 m apart along the pier's length and 4.6 m apart 

 across the width. The piles are embedded approximately 20 m below the 

 ocean bottom. The pier deck is 6.1 m wide and extends from behind the 

 duneline to about the 6-m water depth contour at a height of 7.8 m above the 

 National Geodetic Vertical Datum (NGVD). The pilings are protected against 

 sand abrasion by concrete erosion collars and against corrosion by a cathodic 

 system. 



An FRF Measurements and Analysis Program has been established to 

 collect basic oceanographic and meteorological data at the site, reduce and 

 analyze these data, and publish the results. 



This report, which summarizes data for 1994, continues a series of reports 

 begun in 1977. 



Chapter 1 Introduction 



