ANNUAL DATA SUMMARY FOR 1991 
CERG FIELD RESEARCH FACILITY 
PART I: INTRODUCTION 
Background 
1. The US Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station (WES), Coastal 
Engineering Research Center's (CERC'’s) Field Research Facility (FRF), located 
on 0.7 km? 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 shoreline extend— 
ing 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 labora— 
tory and analytical studies and numerical models; (c) provide 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. 
2. 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 dune- 
line 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. 
3. 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. 
4. This report, which summarizes data for 1991, continues a series of 
reports begun in 1977. 
