Energy Losses and Floating Breakwater Response

Abstract

Very often the linear models of floating caisson breakwaters simulate the complete hydrodynamic phenomenon by dividing it into elementary problems, such as wave diffraction around a fixed surface body, motion of the moored structure caused by the wave, and change of the wave field due to waves generated by the breakwater. The authors show that in the particular case of floating breakwater, the superposition, which uncouples the wave diffraction and the body movement, neglects important effects of coupled phenomena and introduces errors into the simulation. The present paper suggests some corrections, which, on the whole, can account for the nonlinearity of the coupled phenomenon. Furthermore, laboratory tests check the validity of the theoretical solutions of the elementary problems, the result obtained by working out these solutions, and the effectiveness of the proposed corrections. The tests also prove that, in some cases, the hydrodynamic coefficients of added mass, calculated on the usual assumption ...