An experimental work has been devised to investigate the bore height and velocity on a dry flatbed as well as the impingement forces acting on a vertical structure subjected to both Newtonian (water) and non-Newtonian (kaolin clay at 20 concentration) fluids using physical modelling. Rheological analysis has shown that within the observed shear rate range (10 to 500 1/s), the kaolin mixture exhibits Herschel-Bulkley characteristics and the apparent viscosity of the fluid fitted well with the Sisko model. A dam-break system has been used to generate the Newtonian and non-Newtonian bores with the help of a 45 cm fluid depth reservoir located at one end of the wave flume. The experimental results shows that the maximum wave height produced by the non-Newtonian bore experiences up to 70 wave reduction along the length of the flume, as compared to 10 wave reduction for the Newtonian bores. While both fluids are subjected to supercritical flow range, the Reynolds number otherwise shows that the Newtonian bores are within turbulent range whereas for the case of non-Newtonian, the flow is laminar. Nevertheless, the pressure exerted by the non-Newtonian laminar flow (for the submerged part of the structure) is higher compared to that of the turbulent Newtonian bore. Bore surges and runup have shown to pose great influences on the overall pressure distribution along the height of the test model to which the Newtonian bores tends to generate larger surface fluxes compared to the non-Newtonian ones. © 2017 IEEE.