Reflection and transmission of waves over submerged breakwaters

This work has a twofold objective. First, a new method to separate incident and reflected wave components, using measurements from one wave probe, is presented. This technique is based on local variations in amplitude and pha se of the measured wave and uses wavelet analysis. Second, the method is ap plied to perform a parametric study to compare the reflection and transmiss ion characteristics of flexible and rigid breakwaters. Results are discusse d for different depths of submergence of the models, different internal pre ssures in the case of the flexible breakwater, and a wide range of wave ste epnesses. The results show that, in general, the rigid model has a higher r eflection coefficient than the flexible model. On the other hand, the flexi ble model has a much higher energy-loss coefficient. Optimal breakwater wid ths for reflection, transmission, and energy loss coefficients for waves wi th different wavelengths are also presented.