Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Wave Impact Pressures on Curved Seawalls

Abstract

Experimental model tests were performed in a wave flume with regular waves to measure the magnitude and distribution of impact pressures caused by breaking waves on a curved seawall model having different radii of curvatures. The base structure of the wall has a foreshore slope of 1/10. Theoretical studies based on pressure impulse theory were carried out to obtain the numerical results of breaking wave impact pressures on curved seawalls. The boundary element method was used for the numerical solution of the governing equation. The novel aspect of this study was to investigate the applicability of pressure impulse theory to curved seawalls. The results showed that the pressure impulse model can be used to model the wave impact pressures and their distribution on curved seawall models with good accuracy. A slight decrease has been observed in pressures for increasing radii of curvatures, especially for the case which the water depth at wall was 14 cm. The location of the maximum impact pressure was found to occur above the still water level for all cases tested in this study.