Data analysis on safety factors of physical modeling structures based on the computation of incident impact

Abstract

The seawall slamming has become increasingly important as coastal engineering experiencing larger loads during the seawall impacts against surface wave which can result in structural damage and crew injury. It is necessary to characterize the hydrodynamic loading during wave impacts. This paper aims to study the wave impact on different stepped seawall structures through physical modeling experiments. Five types of stepped seawall structures were designed according to seawall slope and step height. The dynamic pressures exerted by different incident waves acting on the stepped seawall structure were measured and the data was collected. Data analysis was performed to investigate the relation of dynamic pressures with seawall slopes and seawall step heights. Results showed that when the incident wave and the seawall step height remained unchanged, the dynamic pressures acting on horizontal and vertical surface of seawall steps decreased with decreasing seawall slope (within a certain range of seawall slope). Additionally, when the incident wave and the seawall slope remained unchanged, the dynamic wave pressures acting on horizontal and vertical surface of seawall steps increased with increasing seawall step height. These results might provide a theoretical basis for the design of safety stepped seawall structures.