Experimental investigations on wave transmission at submerged breakwater with smooth and stepped slopes

Abstract

Submerged breakwaters are gaining more popularity as a potential coastal protection structure resulting in moderate wave transmission with significant wave energy dissipation. Submerged breakwaters are mainly adopted to prevent erosion and to dissipate the incident wave energy. In addition, the premature wave breaking facilitates the wave surfing activities by proper designing of submerged breakwater. In the present study, the experiments are conducted on submerged breakwaters in a two dimensional wave flume to investigate the influence of stepped and smooth front slope of the submerged breakwater, its height and width in reducing wave energy. A total number of eighteen sets of experiments has been conducted for three different breakwater heights (31cm, 28cm and 26cm) and three different breakwater widths (10cm, 20cm and 30cm) with stepped and smooth front slope of breakwater. The submerged breakwater models are subjected to regular waves of four different wave heights and five different wave periods in a constant water depth of 31cm, to determine wave transmissions characteristics. The influence of relative breakwater width, relative depth of submergence of the breakwater and roughness of breakwater front slope on wave transmission are analyzed and discussed in this paper.