Spatial Variation of Wave Force Acting on a Vertical Detached Breakwater Considering Diffraction

Abstract

In this study, the analytical solution for diffraction near a vertical detached breakwater was suggested by superposing the solutions of diffraction near a semi-infinite breakwater suggested previously using linear wave theory. The solutions of wave forces acting on front, lee and composed wave forces on both side were also derived. Relative wave amplitude changed periodically in space owing to the interactions between diffracting waves and standing waves on front side and the interactions between diffracting waves from both tips of a detached breakwater on lee side. The wave forces on a vertical detached breakwater were investigated with monochromatic, uni-directional random and multi-directional random waves. The maximum composed wave force considering the forces on front and lee side reached maximum 1.6 times of wave forces which doesn’t consider diffraction. This value is larger than the maximum composed wave force of semi-infinite breakwater considering diffraction, 1.34 times, which was suggested by Jung et al. (2021). The maximum composed wave forces were calculated in the order of monochromatic, uni-directional random and multi-directional random waves in terms of intensity. It was also found that the maximum wave force of obliquely incident waves was sometimes larger than that of normally incident waves. It can be known that the considerations of diffraction, the composed wave force on both front and lee side and incident wave angle are important from this study.