STUDY ON WAVE PRESSURE CHARACTERISTICS ACTING ON NON WAVE-OVERTOPPING TYPE SEAWALL IN DEEPWATER

Basic knowledge on wave force acting on a Non-Wave-Overtopping Type Seawall in deep water has been experimentally investigated to advance practical design of this type of seawall. The experiments were conducted with a two-dimensional wave tank using 1/45 reduced scale models. Two different cross sectional shapes of the curved face of the seawall, by which wave overtopping is effectively prevented, were used for the model seawalls. Wave pressures were measured with a number of pressure gauges distributed along the curved face. The relations between the crown height of the seawall and the wave pressure distribution were investigated. It was found that the largest wave pressure along the curved face appears mostly in the vicinity of the crown, but also the largest wave pressure occasionally appears in the vicinity of the middle of the curved face depending on the way waves hit the wall. It was also found that the intervals of the occurrences of large wave pressures could be adequately accounted for statistically by exponential distributions.