Wave damping by a vertical porous structure placed near and away from a rigid vertical wall

Abstract

Damping of water waves by a vertical porous structure placed at some distance from a vertical wall is investigated within the framework of linear water wave theory. The rectangular porous structure is placed on a small rectangular elevation. An incident wave of small amplitude propagates through the structure – some portion gets reflected back while some portion gets transmitted to a third region bounded vertically by a rigid wall which is considered to be at a distance near the porous structure, and also away from the wall at a large distance as a separate case. Boundary value problems are set up in all three regions and, by using the matching conditions along the vertical boundaries, a system of linear equations is deduced. The roots of the relevant dispersion relation are used in setting up the system of equations. The overall scattering phenomenon is studied with respect to different relevant parameters. The dependence of the coefficients on the thickness (width) of the porous structure is investigated for different numbers of modes and porosity. It is observed that, except for the case when the porous structure is thin, the reflection and transmission coefficients give rise to values as expected. In the case, when the rigid wall is nearer to the structure, the reflection coefficient decreases rapidly for a thin structure and converges for all numbers of evanescent modes afterwards. The transmission coefficient also decreases as the width increases, ultimately converging and vanishing for a wide structure. When the wall is at a large distance away from the structure, the behavior of both the reflection and transmission coefficients remain the same. For both cases of the wall being nearer and away from the structure, higher porosity gives rise to lower reflection coefficients and higher transmission coefficients. However, the transmission coefficients converge and vanish when the porous structure is very wide. We also discuss the energy loss against the width of the porous structure for different values of number of modes and porosity. Irrespective of the positioning of the rigid wall, we observe that for higher values of porosity, energy loss is more pronounced when the structure is not thin, whereas energy loss is same for all numbers of modes. All our observations are supported by graphs. Good agreement of our result with earlier results justifies our model.