EFFECTS OF WAVE GROUPING ON BREAKWATER STABILITY

Resumen

It has been found that certain sequences of waves, such as occurring within well defined wave groups, can cause greater damage to rubble mound structures, than equally high individual waves dispersed throughout a wave train. It has therefore been necessary to develop a new wave synthesizing technique, which allows control of the phasing of the wave frequencies, so that a similar degree of wave grouping can be produced in the laboratory as is expected to occur at a particular location in the prototype. Also, during the course of this investigation, an attempt was made to simulate the strength of concrete armour units to the correct model scale. The breaking of armour units, due to their rocking or being displaced, resulted in a much higher percentage of damage, than would have been possible to predict from tests with commonly used model armour units.