Experimental and Numerical Investigation of the Hydrodynamic Characteristics of Submerged Breakwaters in Waves

Ning, D.; Chen, L.; Zhao, M., and Teng, B., 2016. Experimental and numerical investigation of the hydrodynamic characteristics of submerged breakwaters in waves.The interactions between nonlinear, regular waves and submerged breakwaters with rectangular or trapezoidal cross-sections were investigated both experimentally and numerically in this article, with emphasis on the effect of the shape of the breakwater on its hydrodynamic behavior. A series of experiments was carried out and used to validate a numerical model based on a fully nonlinear, two-dimensional boundary-element method. Comparisons among the numerical results of both wave elevations and wave pressures on the structure and the measured data indicate that the present numerical model is very capable of accurately predicting the hydrodynamic characteristics of submerged breakwaters in waves. Furthermore, parametric studies were conducted to investigate the influence of the existence of the seaward and rearward slopes on the effectiveness of the breakwater in reflecting the wave energy.