Hydrodynamic Characteristics of Idealized Flexible Vegetation under Regular Waves: Experimental Investigations and Analysis

Abstract

Wang, H.; Yin, Z.; Luan, Y.; Wang, Y., and Liu, D., 2022. Hydrodynamic characteristics of idealized flexible vegetation under regular waves: Experimental investigations and analysis. Journal of Coastal Research, 38(3), 673–680. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Salt marshes protect coastal communities from erosion and damage by damping incoming waves. A series of physical experiments were conducted to investigate the wave attenuation characteristics of idealized flexible vegetation, and the parameters of submergence, stem density, wave height, and wave length were considered. It was observed that the wave transmission coefficient decreased and the wave damping factor increased with increasing submergence ratio, relative wave height, and relative stem density and decreasing relative wave length. Moreover, the wave transmission coefficient decreased with increasing Ursell number. In addition, with an increase in the submergence ratio, relative wave height, Reynolds number, Keulegan-Carpenter number, and Ursell number, the bulk drag coefficient decreased. The bulk drag coefficient was more strongly related to the Ursell number than the other parameters. A simple equation for the wave transmission coefficient was constructed using the dimensional analysis method, the least squares method, and randomly selected experimental data, and it was effectively validated based on the other experimental data.