Hydrodynamic pressure and forces on quadrant front face pile supported breakwater

Quadrant front face pile supported breakwater is a combination of semicircular and closely spaced pile breakwaters which couples the advantages of these two types. This type of structure consists of two parts. The bottom portion consists of closely spaced piles and the top portion consists of a quadrant solid front face on the seaside. The leeward side of the top portion with a vertical face would facilitate the berthing of vessels. An experimental investigation on this breakwater model in a wave flume is carried out for three water depths. For each water depth, three different spacings between the piles were adopted for the investigation. The dynamic pressures exerted along the quadrant front face due to regular waves were measured. The variation of dimensionless pressures with respect to scattering parameter for different gap ratio (spacing between the piles/diameter of pile) and for relative pile depth (water depth/pile height) are presented and discussed. In addition, the dimensionless total forces exerted on the breakwater model as well as its reflection characteristics as a function of scattering parameter are reported. © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.