WAVE TRANSFORMATION DUE TO A SUBMERGED POROUS BLOCK
ASSOCIATED WITH A VERTICAL BARRIER
K.R. Athul Krishna
1
, V. Venkateswarlu
1
and D. Karmakar
1
ABSTRACT: In the present study, the combination of vertical porous barrier along with the porous block is proposed
for wave energy damping. Three types of vertical barriers such as (a) fully extended barrier (b) bottom-standing barrier
and (c) surface piercing barrier away from the porous structure are analysed for wave trapping. The finite spacing in
between vertical barrier and the porous structure is proposed for better wave trapping. The continuity of velocity and
pressure at the interfaces of vertical barrier and porous structure are considered and the eigenfunction expansion method
is adopted to determine the wave transformation characteristics due to the presence of submerged vertical barrier and
porous block. The resistance and reactance offered by the porous structure are taken into account using the complex
dispersion relation proposed by Sollitt and Cross (1972). The effect of structural porosity, width of the structure and angle
of incidence on wave transformation due to the vertical barrier away from the porous structure are examined in detail.
The results are compared and validated with the available literature for specific configurations as in Sollitt and Cross
(1972) and Mallayachari and Sundar (1994). The study suggests that the increase in the structural porosity enhances the
wave energy damping and global minima is achieved in the wave reflection coefficient due to the formation of standing
waves by the breakwater system. The proposed structure can be adopted in leeward, port and harbour regions to achieve
the tranquillity condition.
Keywords: Eigenfunction expansion method, Wave reflection coefficient, Wave transmission coefficient, Porosity,
Friction factor.
1. INTRODUCTION
The wave energy concentration, sea level rise, global
warming, melting of Artic-Antarctic ice glaciers etc.
causes coastline changes due to constant erosion accretion
processes. The conventional hard engineering used for
coastal protection affects the aesthetical appearance of
beaches. Moreover, the partial wave transmission is
essential to take place the natural beach processes which
maintains the beach profile. Several researches have
investigated the performance of permeable plates, and
porous structures of various shapes are found to be good
wave energy absorbers in the presence and absence of the
leeward end wall.
Most of the studies are conducted by researchers on
wave reflection and transmission characteristics of oblique
waves. Sollitt and Cross (1972) analysed the effect of
porous structures on accounting the reactance and
resistance offered by the breakwater in the conventional
dispersion relation. The study presented the wave
reflection and transmission coefficient due to the porous
structure and validated with the experimental results. The
study of wave reflection and transmission on a multi-
layered trapezoidal breakwater is performed by Sulisz
(1985) using Boundary Element Method (BEM). The
comparative study is performed between the numerical and
Department of Applied Mechanics and Hydraulics, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, Mangalore – 575025, India.
Email: dkarmakar@nitk.edu.in
experimental results. The wave transmission coefficient
using numerical approach is observed exactly coincide
with the experimental results but in the case of wave
reflection coefficient from the numerical results shows
little high estimation as compared with the experimental
results. Dalrymple et al. (1991) used eigenfunction
expansion method to study the wave scattering due to the
presence of porous structure. The study proposed the direct
analytical equations for finding the wave reflection and
transmission coefficients for the plane-wave and long-
wave approximations considering porous structure in
various configurations. Mani (2009) studied the wave
reflection, transmission characteristics and wave forces on
zig zag porous screen breakwater using the hydraulic tests.
The wave reflection and transmission coefficients is
observed to reach minor values due to the presence of
submerged zig zag porous structure and the experimental
results are validated with numerical results.
In order to reduce the difficulties pertaining to the
solution procedure of finding the roots of the complex
dispersion relation for porous structure region, Liu and Li
(2012) introduced a new-analytical method to examine the
wave scattering due to porous breakwater. The porous
structure dispersion relation is inessential in the new
analytical solution. The wave scattering due to the presence
of porous breakwater using analytical solution is presented
Proceedings of the 10
th
International Conference on Asian and Pacific Coasts
(APAC 2019) Hanoi, Vietnam, September 25-28, 2019
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020
N. Trung Viet et al. (eds.), APAC 2019,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0291-0_98
717