Assessment of the solitary wave attenuation through pervious concrete breakwater

Abstract

Breakwaters are coastal structures typically used to protect shorelines from coastal erosion by providing wave energy attenuation and reflecting amounts of wave currents. Traditional breakwaters made of impervious materials can have a significant environmental impact, disrupting the coastal ecosystem and altering natural wave patterns. In general, permeability has become an acquainted characteristic since it directly influences the interaction between the structure, the coastal zone behind it, and the lateral zone without structural protection, which makes pervious concrete a sustainable alternative to traditional concrete. In this study, pervious concrete is utilised as a permeable breakwater considering the influence of permeability introduced to deliver ecological friendliness defence for shorelines. A physical experiment was used to evaluate four models of structures that varied in porosity in order to study the physical properties and then analyse the performance of the pervious concrete breakwater over the solitary wave impact. Subsequently, the hydrodynamic scattering coefficient is analysed by considering changes in physical parameters. The results indicated that pervious concrete breakwater (PCB) could effectively work in the case of emergence due to the increased interaction between wave and structure. PCBs can effectively reduce wave reflection and increase wave transmission, with the magnitude of these effects increasing with porosity. The result indicated the potentiality of PCB to serve as a feasible alternative to traditional breakwaters for a prospective coastal protection structure by reducing the environmental impact as PCBs allow for the passage of water and other marine organisms, which can help maintain the health of coastal ecosystems. Finally, the structure of PCBs, which can be prefabricated, could reduce the complexity and time of installation, making them a cost-effective solution for coastal protection.