Behavior Investigation on a Cylindrical Breakwater during Wave Loading

Cylindrical breakwater is a new type of deep water breakwater which is proposed to be constructed on soft ground with severe wave loading.As it is not long before the trial section was built up,no severe storm has been encountered till now. Therefore,a specific subject study of cylindrical breakwater by centrifuge model tests is carried out to investigate the response of the cylindrical breakwater subject to the hypothesized wave load in the design.The response of cylindrical breakwater is depicted in terms of the horizontal,vertical and tilt displacement as well as the excess pore water pressure in the soft ground. The effect of the loading strength of wave,the height of lower cylinders,and the ballasting weight in upper cylinders,are studied on its working performance.It is found that for given soil ground conditions,cylindrical breakwater was a strong structure that was able to resist very adverse wave loading in a storm.Two main modes of failure are finally proposed in the design for cylindrical breakwater,that is,lateral translational sliding failure due to short height of lower cylinders and overturning failure of excessive tilt displacement due to sustaining wave loading of long duration.