Wave reflection from vertical breakwater with porous structure

Abstract

This paper presents numerical solutions for the wave reflection from submerged porous structures in front of the impermeable vertical breakwater. A new time-dependent mild-slope equation involves the parameters of the porous medium including the porosity, the friction factor and the inertia coefficient, etc. is derived for solving the boundary value problem. A comprehensive comparison between the present model and the existing analytical solution for the case of simple rectangular geometries of the submerged structure is performed first. Then, more complicated cases such as the inclined and trapezoidal submerged porous structures in front of the vertical breakwater with sloping bottom are considered. This study also examines the effects of the permeable properties and the geometric configurations of the porous structure to the wave reflection. It is found that the submerged porous structure with trapezoidal shape has more efficiency to reduce the wave reflection than that of triangular shape. The numerical results show that the minimum wave reflection is occurred when the breakwater is located at the intermediate water depth. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.