ABSTRACT:Laboratory experiments are presented for the breaking of solitary waves over breakwaters. A variety of behaviors is observed, depending on both breakwater and incident wave height: for emerged breakwaters, waves may collapse over the crown, or break backward during rundown; and for submerged breakwaters, waves may break forward or backward, downstream of the breakwater. The limit of overtopping and wave transmission and reflection coefficients are experimentally determined. It is seen that transmission is large over submerged breakwaters (55-90%), and may also reach 20-40% over emerged breakwaters. Computations using a fully nonlinear potential model agree well with experimental results for the submerged breakwaters, particularly for the smaller waves (Hid < 0.4). For emerged breakwaters, computations correctly predict the limit of overtopping, and the backward collapsing during rundown.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.