Solitary wave loads on submerged breakwaters: laboratory tests.

A solitary wave almost halves its propagation speed passing over a submerged breakwater for coast defense. This is the basic assumption made by Filianoti & Piscopo (2008) for their calculation of horizontal wave loads on the breakwater. They calculated this slowing down, through a BEM model, on assuming that it has the same value both for a periodic and a solitary wave. Once estimated the speed slowing down, it is straightforward to obtain solitary wave loads thorugh the calculation of the Froude-Krilov force. Laboratory tests carried out on a small scale model of submerged breakwater interacting with solitary waves, permit us to experimentally reproduce the phenomenon, to check whether the speed slowing down exists, and to measure it. Copyright © 2012 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers