Hydrodynamic pressures and forces on quadrant front face pile supported breakwater

Quadrant front face pile supported breakwater is a combination of semicircu lar and closely spaced pile breakwaters which couples the advantages of the se two types. This type of structure consists of two parts. The bottom port ion consists of closely spaced piles and the top portion consists of a quad rant solid front face on the seaside. The leeward side of the top portion w ith a vertical face would facilitate the berthing of vessels. An experiment al investigation on this breakwater model in a wave flume is carried out fo r three water depths. For each water depth, three different spacings betwee n the piles were adopted for the investigation. The dynamic pressures exert ed along the quadrant front face due to regular waves were measured. The va riation of dimensionless pressures with respect to scattering parameter for different gap ratio (spacing between the piles/diameter of pile) and for r elative pile depth (water depth/pile height) are presented and discussed. I n addition, the dimensionless total forces exerted on the breakwater model as well as its reflection characteristics as a function of scattering param eter are reported. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.