hundred-year wave
{{Short description|Statistically projected water wave}}
A hundred-year wave is a statistically projected water wave, the height of which, on average, is met or exceeded once in a hundred years for a given location. The likelihood of this wave height being attained at least once in the hundred-year period is 63%.{{cite book|last=Brooke|first=John|author2=Engineering Committee on Oceanic Resources Working Group on Wave Energy Conversion|title=Wave Energy Conversion|publisher=Elsevier|date=2003|pages=170|isbn=0-08-044212-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UGAXRwoLZY4C&dq=%22hundred+year+wave%22&pg=PA170|accessdate=2008-09-09}} As a projection of the most extreme wave which can be expected to occur in a given body of water, the hundred-year wave is a factor commonly taken into consideration by designers of oil platforms and other offshore structures.
{{cite book
| first=Y.
| last=Goda
| title=Random Seas and Design of Maritime Structures
| year=2000
| publisher=World Scientific
| isbn=978-981-02-3256-6
{{cite book
| title=Modeling Complex Engineering Structures
| first=Robert E.
| last=Melchers
|author2=Hough, Richard
| publisher=ASCE Publications
| year=2007
| isbn=978-0-7844-0850-6
{{Cite book
| last = Holthuijsen
| first = Leo H.
| year = 2007
| title = Waves in oceanic and coastal waters
| publisher = Cambridge University Press
| isbn = 978-0-521-86028-4
| location = Cambridge
}} Ch. 4. Periods of time other than a hundred years may also be taken into account, resulting in, for instance, a fifty-year wave.{{cite book|last=Le Tirant|first=P.|author2=Jacques Meunier|author3=Association de recherche en géotechnique marine (France)|translator=Nissim Marshall|title=Anchoring of Floating Structures: Design Guides for Offshore Structures|publisher=Editions TECHNIP|date=1990|pages=50|isbn=2-7108-0572-3|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BWe3EhEeOQEC&dq=%22hundred+year+wave%22&pg=PA50|accessdate=2008-09-09}}
Various methods are employed to predict the possible steepness{{cite book|last=Cruz|first=Joao|title=Ocean Wave Energy: Current Status and Future Perspectives|publisher=Springer|date=2008|pages=16|isbn=978-3-540-74894-6|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XVBNCexCjoUC&dq=%22hundred+year+wave%22&pg=RA1-PA16|accessdate=2008-09-09}} and period{{cite book|author=Editions Technip|author2=Association De Recherche Action Des|title=Sea Climatology|publisher=Editions TECHNIP|date=1980|pages=7|isbn=2-7108-0396-8|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FbT9asD7vBwC&dq=%22hundred+year+wave%22&pg=PA7|accessdate=2008-09-09}} of these waves, in addition to their height.