Effect of hydraulic and structural parameters on the wave run-up over the berm breakwaters

Abstract

The main aim of this study is to investigate the effect of berm breakwater on wave run-up. A total of 200 numerical analysis tests have been carried out in this paper to investigate the effect of berm width, wave height, and wave period on the wave run-up, using an integrating technique of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Direct application of Navier Stokes equations within the berm width has been used to provide a more reliable approach for studying the wave run-up over berm breakwaters. A well tested Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) code with the Volume of Fluid (VOF) scheme was adopted for numerical computations. The computational results were compared with theoretical data to validate the model outputs. Numerical results showed that the simulation method can provide accurate estimations for wave run-up over berm breakwaters. It was found that the wave run-up may be decreased by increasing the berm width up to about 36 percent. Furthermore, the wave run-up may increase by increasing the wave height and wave period up to about 53 and 36 percent, respectively. These results may convince the engineers to use this model for design of berm breakwater in actual scale by calculating the Reynolds numbers.