Experimental Study of Breaking Wave Impinging and Overtopping a Deck Structure

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental work on a breaking wave impinging and overtopping a deck structure. Because the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique is known of unsuitable of applying in highly aerated flows such as breaking waves, a technology named Bubble Image Velocimetry (BIV) is adopted to quantify the turbulent velocity characteristics in the bubbly region. A high-speed camera is used to capture images during the wave-structure interaction event in the framework of BIV methodology and the images are subsequently processed using cross-correlation for velocity determination. A wave focusing method is employed to generate plunging breaker in a laboratory-scale wave flume, and the model structure is a horizontal, flat and rigid deck that can be considered as a representative of a coastal bridge or an offshore floating platform. The goal is to gain physical insight from the breaking wave interaction with a simplified structure through measuring the kinematics of the bubbly flow.