Hydrodynamic characteristics of slotted breakwaters under regular waves

The performance of a slotted breakwater consisting of one row of vertical slots was investigated theoretically and experimentally under normal regular waves. A simple theoretical model based on an eigenfunction was developed. The wave transmission, reflection, energy loss, and hydrodynamic force exerted on the breakwater were calculated for different values of the wave and structure parameters. The validity of the theoretical model was examined by comparing its results with theoretical and experimental results obtained from different studies. It was found that the transmission coefficient decreases with increasing dimensionless wavenumber ( kh ), increasing wave steepness ( H i / L ), and decreasing breakwater porosity ( ε ). The reflection coefficient showed the opposite trend to the transmission coefficient. Also, about 20–50% of incident wave energy was lost due to the effect of the breakwater. In addition, the proposed theoretical model can be used for predicting the performance of slotted breakwaters and the hydrodynamic forces exerted on these structures using the friction coefficient f = 1.5.