Forces Induced by Breaking Waves on a Vertical Wall.

Jan J. Leendertse

Expert InsightsPublished 1962

Analyses of two-dimensional laboratory measurements of the forces induced by breaking waves on a vertical barrier placed on a plane with a one-to-ten slope. The deepwater wave heights ranged from 0.2 to 0.6 foot and their periods ranged from 1.9 to 3.3 seconds. The ratio between the depth of water in front of the barrier and the deepwater wave length was approximately 0.0115. The forces on the barrier are characterized by a peak, which occurs immediately after the initial impact. The impulse of the peak is usually a small percentage of the cumulative impulse up to the time of momentum reversal. After this short-duration peak, the force decreases exponentially until after an appreciable part of the wave period--about one-sixth, depending on the wave steepness--when it rises again to a second maximum which occurs at the time of momentum reversal. This maximum in the force is approximately equal to the average force from the time of initial impact to the time of this maximum of rise (momentum reversal).

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Leendertse, Jan J., Forces Induced by Breaking Waves on a Vertical Wall. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1962. https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P2512.html.
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