China Ocean Eng., Vol. 25, No. 3, pp.

469 − 478
© 2011 Chinese Ocean Engineering Society
ISSN 0890-5487

Experimental Researches on Reflective and Transmitting Performances of

Quarter Circular Breakwater Under Regular and Irregular Waves*

SHI Yan-jiao (史艳娇)a, WU Mi-ling (吴米玲)b,

JIANG Xue-lian (蒋学炼)a, 1 and LI Yan-bao (李炎保)c, d
a
Tianjin Key Laboratory of Soft Soil Characteristics & Engineering Environment, Tianjin Institute of Urban
Construction, Tianjin 300384, China
b
Wuhan Harbour Engineering Design and Research Co. Ltd, China Communications Construction
Company Ltd., Wuhan 430071, China
c
School of Civil Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
d
State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, Chengdu 610065, China

(Received 3 December 2010; received revised form 10 March 2011; accepted 3 May 2011)

ABSTRACT
A series of regular and irregular wave experiments are conducted to study the reflective and transmitting performances
of quarter circular breakwater (QCB) in comparison with those of semi-circular breakwater (SCB). Based on regular
wave tests, the reflection and transmission characteristics of QCB are analyzed and a few influencing factors are
investigated. Then, the wave energy dissipation as wave passing over the breakwater is discussed based on the hydraulic
coefficients of QCB and SCB. In irregular wave experiments, the reflection coefficients of QCB and their spectrums are
studied. Finally, the comparisons between the experimental results and numerical simulations for QCB under regular and
irregular wave conditions are presented.

Key words: quarter circular breakwater; regular wave; irregular wave; reflection; transmission

1. Introduction
Quarter circle breakwater (QCB) is a new-type breakwater first proposed by Xie et al. (2006) on
the basis of semi-circular breakwater (SCB). Similar to SCB, QCB is usually placed on rubble-mound
foundation and its superstructure consists of a quarter circular surface facing incident waves, a
horizontal bottom and a rear vertical wall (Fig. 1). Owing to the similar configuration, QCB has the
same advantages as SCB, such as reducing wave force using circular surface facing incident wave, no
overturning moments since wave force pointing to the center of the circle surface and landscape, etc.
However, the most benefit of QCB different from SCB is to reduce the volume of rubble-mound
foundation because of the smaller bottom width.
Up to now, a few numerical and experimental researches have been performed on the hydraulics

* This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 50779045), the Open
Foundation of State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering (Grant No. 0710), the National Science
Foundation for Post-Doctoral Scientists of China (Grant No. 20080440681), the Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin, China (Grant
No. 10JCYBJC03700), and the Scientific and Technologic Development Foundation of the Higher Education Institutions of Tianjin,
China (Grant No. 20080906).
1 Corresponding author. E-mail: jiangxuelian99@163.com
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of QCB. Xie et al. (2006) demonstrated the stability of QCB under wave attacks and compared the
horizontal wave force of QCB with that of SCB in terms of experimental results. Liu et al. (2006)
discussed the hydraulics of QCB based on regular wave experiments. Jiang et al. (2008) utilized
numerical wave flume based on the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations to simulate the
hydraulic performances of QCB under regular waves. However, as stated above, these numerical and
experimental studies on QCB were performed only under regular wave conditions. Therefore, the
purpose of this paper is to investigate the reflection and transmission characteristics of QCB based on
both regular and irregular wave experiments.

Fig. 1. Test model of quarter circle breakwater.

In the following sections, the methodology of model experiments for QCB under regular and
irregular waves will first be introduced. Then, the experimental results will be discussed with particular
focus being put on the reflection and transmission performances. Finally, some conclusions are drawn.

2. Experimental Setup
The regular and irregular wave experiments were conducted in a wave flume with 30m×
1.0m×1.3m (length×width×height) and a wave tank with 35m×0.5m×0.8m (length×width×height),
respectively.
Experimental conditions were well-designed in order to analyze the hydraulic performances of
QCB and SCB under the combination of various water levels and wave conditions. Two cases of still
water levels were applied to simulate the situations of submerged breakwater and emerged breakwater.
A parameter, relative freeboard height hc / H i , was introduced to distinguish different overtopping
cases as defined in Fig. 1 ( hc is the crest elevation of the breakwater above the still water surface and
H i is the incident wave height that the significant wave heights would be adopted in irregular wave
experiments). It is noted that negative hc / H i refers to the submerged cases and on the contrary
positive hc / H i indicates the emerged cases. It should be noted that all of incident waves in
experiments are non-breaking. Regular waves were generated by reciprocating the wave paddle at a
constant speed adjusted in terms of required wave period. Irregular waves were made based on the
frequency spectrum simulation with target spectrum of JONSWAP type.
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For the purpose of comparison, the same experimental conditions were performed to obtain the
hydraulics of semi-circular breakwater (SCB).

Fig. 2. Definition sketch for relative freeboard

height hc / H i .

The experimental configuration is shown in Fig. 3. Six wave gages were placed around the model
breakwater in order to record the undulation of water level. The records of the first three gages at the
far right would be used to resolve the incident and reflected wave trains by use of the technique
proposed by Mansard and Funke (1980). Gage-4 was fixed at the position adjacent to the front of
model breakwater to record the reflected waves by up-wave circular surface. Gage-5 was assigned on
the lee side of model breakwater to measure the overtopping waves. In addition, Gage-6 was put in
position about a wave length away from the rear face of breakwater to record the transmitted wave
profiles. Every time before the waves were generated, all the wave gages would be moved to new
locations according to experimental wave conditions.

Fig. 3. Experimental setup for physical model.

3. Experimental Results for Regular Waves

3.1 Reflective and Transmitting Performances of QCB

Coefficients of wave reflection and transmission for QCB resulted from the tests are presented in
Fig. 4. Two kinds of reflection coefficients are defined: (1) “Resolution reflection coefficient” based
on the traditional concept of reflection coefficient with the expression of K r = H r H i ( H r is the
reflected wave height obtained by means of the resolution of incident and reflected waves based on the
records of water surface elevation from Gage-1~Gage-3), which represents the whole effect of wave
reflection by breakwater (Shao, 2003); (2)“Circular-surface reflection coefficient” with the expression
of K rc = ( H 4 − H i ) H i ( H 4 is the wave height obtained from the records of Gage-4), which is used to
describe the reflective effect by circular surface on the adjacent flow field in front of the breakwater.
To discuss the influences of incident wave steepness on the reflective capacity of breakwater, the
resolution reflection coefficients ( K r ) are divided into two parts with the ranges of H i / Li =0.05~
0.069 and H i / Li =0.07~0.087, respectively (Li is the incident wave length).
It can be seen from Fig. 4 that the resolution reflection coefficients ( K r ) vary from 0.17 to 0.5 as
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well as circular-surface reflection coefficients ( K rc ) are smaller with the range of 0.02~0.4. Overall,
the fact of K rc < K r at the same relative freeboard height ( hc / H i ) indicates that the entire reflective
effect of QCB is stronger than that by circular surface on the adjacent flow field.
In addition, the transmission coefficients of QCB were computed based on the ratio of transmitted
wave heights obtained from the records of Gage-6 to incident wave heights, i.e. K t = H 6 H i . The
transmission coefficients vary with inversed parabolic curve along the relative freeboard height
( hc / H i ), and the maximum value occurs at hc / H i ≈ −0.30 (Fig. 4). Overall, as shown in Fig. 4, the
transmission coefficients first increase from about 0.6 to 1.0 as hc / H i increases from −0.70 to −0.30
(i.e. the cases of submerged breakwater) and conversely decrease from about 1.0 to 0.2 as hc / H i
increases from −0.30 to 0.60. Obviously, the descending speed rate is fast under the case of emerged
breakwater (i.e. hc / H i >0). The evolution of the transmission coefficients of QCB is somewhat
different from the common idea of the transmitted wave heights being always inversely proportional to
the crown elevation of the breakwater (Goda, 2000). More researches should be done to solve this
puzzle.
It can also be seen from Fig. 4 that the reflection and transmission performances of QCB are more
sensitive to the relative freeboard height ( hc / H i ) than to the wave steepness ( H i / Li ). Both kinds of
reflection coefficients are reduced as hc / H i increases for submerged breakwater ( hc / H i <0) and
conversely show an obvious increase as hc / H i increases under the emerged cases ( hc / H i >0).
However, the influence of the wave steepness upon the resolution reflection coefficients ( K r ) is small
under regular wave conditions (see Fig. 4). A simple expression for the resolution reflection
coefficients of QCB can be deduced by use of the linear regression of experimental results:
hc
K r = 0.19 + 0.35 : −0.7 ≤ hc / H i ≤ 0.6 and 0.055 ≤ H i / Li ≤ 0.085
H

Fig. 4. Coefficients of wave reflection and transmission for QCB under regular waves.

3.2 Comparison of Hydraulic Performances for QCB and SCB

Based on simultaneous hydraulic experiments for QCB and SCB, the comparison of the reflection
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and transmission coefficients of QCB and SCB is presented in Fig. 5. It is shown that the hydraulic
performances of QCB and SCB are almost the same, which may be resulted from the similar structural
profiles of both breakwaters. Jiang et al. (2008) put forward that the behaviors of flow field around
QCB and SCB are similar for both submerged and emerged cases based on numerical simulations
under regular wave conditions.

Fig. 5. Comparison between reflection and transmission coefficients of QCB and SCB.

3.3 Estimation of Energy Dissipation as Wave Passing over Breakwater

Based on wave theory, the mean wave energy is proportional to the square value of wave height
while wave propagates. Therefore, the dissipation of wave energy due to the viscous effects as wave
traveling over breakwater could be estimated by utilizing the hydraulic coefficients of breakwater on
the basis of wave energy conservation. Here, the wave energy loss parameter is defined as follows:
Ei − ( Er + Et ) ⎡⎛ H ⎞ 2 ⎛ H ⎞ 2 ⎤
K Eloss = = 1 − ⎢⎜ r ⎟ + ⎜ t ⎟ ⎥ = 1 − ( K r 2 + K t 2 )
Ei ⎣⎢⎝ H i ⎠ ⎝ H i ⎠ ⎥⎦
In which, the subscripts “r” and “t” denote the reflected and the transmitted quantities,
respectively. In addition, the symbols of “E” and “K” represents the wave energy and the hydraulic
coefficient, respectively. It is easy to understand that the wave energy loss parameter ( K Eloss ) describes
the ratio of dissipated wave energy to the original gross wave energy within the process of wave-
structure interaction.
Fig. 6 shows the relations between K Eloss and hc / H i for QCB and SCB. It can be seen from the
fitted regression curves of K Eloss that the wave energy loss parameter for both breakwater types are
almost the same. The minimum K Eloss occurs at hc / H i ≈ −0.2. The ratio of wave energy dissipation
shows a gradual decrease from about 0.5 to 0.1 while hc / H i ≤ −0.2 (corresponding to the case of
submerged breakwater) and increases from about 0.1 to above 0.6 with the breakwater crown elevating
from submerged case to emerged case. Overall, the loss of wave energy for emerged breakwater is
larger than that for submerged breakwater.
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Fig. 6. Wave energy loss parameters of QCB and SCB.

4. Experimental Results for Irregular Waves

4.1 Reflection Coefficients Under Irregular Waves

Usually, a mathematical interpretation of irregular waves is to consider the random waves as a
linear superposition of infinite number of component waves with respective amplitude and frequency
(Yu, 2000). In addition, since the energies of the incident and reflected wave trains should be
proportional to the squares of the respective wave heights, the reflection coefficient for irregular waves
M M
can be defined as K R = ER / EI = ∑ aR2 ( m ) ∑ aI2 ( m ) , which represents the reflective capacity of the
m=1 m=1

wave group as a whole. In the above expression, ER and EI represent the energies of the reflective
and incident wave trains, respectively. As well, aR and aI denote the amplitudes of the reflective and
incident component waves, respectively. In this paper, we call K R as “synthesis reflection coefficient”.
The comparison between the synthesis reflection coefficients of QCB and SCB obtained from the
irregular wave experiments is shown in Fig. 7. Under the experimental conditions in this paper, the
synthesis reflection coefficients increase from about 0.15 to 0.75 as the relative freeboard height
( hc / H si ) increases. It needs to be reminded that the synthesis reflection coefficients for QCB have
been classified into two groups with different ranges of incident significant wave steepness in order to
discuss the effects of H si / Lsi on K R . Here, the subscript “s” of H si and Lsi denotes the concept of
significant wave for irregular waves. It can be seen from Fig. 7 that the synthesis reflection coefficients
for SCB are almost the same as those for QCB under H si / Lsi =0.047~0.062, but smaller than those for
QCB under H si / Lsi =0.033~0.046 (i.e. longer wave periods). Therefore, the influences of the wave
steepness upon the reflection coefficients under irregular wave conditions are stronger than those under
regular wave conditions (see Fig. 4). As a rough estimation, the synthesis reflection coefficients for
QCB can be calculated by:
hc
K R = 0.23 + 0.43 : −1.0 ≤ hc / H si ≤ 1.0 and 0.033 ≤ H si / Lsi ≤ 0.062
H si
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Fig. 7. Synthesis reflection coefficients for QCB and SCB under irregular waves.

4.2 Frequency Analysis of Reflection Coefficients of Component Waves

The above synthesis reflection coefficient K R describes the reflective capacity of the irregular
wave trains as a whole. For the aim to discuss the intrinsic characteristics of the reflective
performances of QCB under irregular waves, the frequency analysis of reflection coefficients of
component waves is performed in this paper (Xue and Zhao, 2000). The reflection coefficients of
individual component wave can be calculated from K R ( f m ) = aR (m) / aI (m) , in which aI (m) and
aR (m) are respectively the incident and reflected amplitudes of the m-th component wave with the
frequency of f m obtained from the resolution of incident and reflected waves of irregular profiles (Yu
et al., 2003). Fig. 8 presents an example of the frequency analysis of reflection coefficients with three
different spectral peak frequencies ( f p ) for QCB. For the convenience of comparison, the synthesis
reflection coefficients ( K R ) of respective cases are also listed in the legends in Fig. 8. It is found from
Fig.8 that the reflection coefficients of component wave at the location of spectral peak frequency
( K RP ( f p ) ) are almost the same as the corresponding synthesis reflection coefficients ( K R ). On the
whole, the reflection coefficients of component waves within the lower frequency band are larger than
those within the higher frequency band.

Fig. 8. Example of the frequency spectrum analysis of reflection coefficients of component waves for QCB.

4.3 Circular-Surface Reflection Coefficients Under Irregular Waves

Similar to Section 3.1, the “circular-surface reflection coefficients” under irregular waves can be
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computed from the ratio of K RC = ( H 4 − H i ) H i based on the records of Gage-4 and incident wave
conditions. Different from the cases of regular waves with fixed heights and periods, here H 4 and H i
indicate the representative wave heights counted from the records of reflective and incident wave trains,
respectively (the values of the highest one-tenth wave, i.e. H1 10 are adopted in this section). As shown
in Fig. 9, the synthesis reflection coefficients ( K R ) vary from 0.15 to 0.76 as well as circular-surface
reflection coefficients ( K RC ) are smaller with the range of 0.05~0.48. Same as the experimental results
of regular waves (see Fig. 4), the circular-surface reflection coefficients ( K RC ) are also smaller than the
synthesis reflection coefficients at identical relative freeboard height ( hc / H si ).

Fig. 9. Comparison of the circular-surface reflection coefficients of the highest one-tenth wave with
the synthesis reflection coefficients for QCB under irregular waves.

5. Comparison of Reflective Performances for Regular and Irregular Waves

In this section, the experimental and numerical results of the resolution reflection coefficients for
QCB under regular waves are compared with the corresponding experimental results of the synthesis
reflection coefficients under irregular waves, as shown in Fig. 10. On the whole, it can be concluded
that the reflective effects for irregular waves are stronger than those for regular waves.

Fig. 10. Comparison of reflection coefficients of QCB under regular and irregular waves.
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6. Conclusions
Quarter circle breakwater (QCB) is a new-type breakwater proposed by improving semi-circular
breakwater (SCB). In the present study, the experimental results of the reflective and transmitting
performances of QCB for regular and irregular wave conditions are introduced and compared with the
experimental results for SCB conducted simultaneously under the same experimental conditions.
Two kinds of reflection coefficients are discussed. One is defined as “resolution reflection
coefficient” calculated by resolving the incident and reflected waves of records from Gage-1~Gage-3.
The other is called “circular-surface reflection coefficient” obtained from the ratio of the wave heights
recorded by Gage-4 to the incident wave heights. For QCB impacted by regular waves, the resolution
reflection coefficients ( K r ) vary from about 0.17 to 0.5 and simultaneously the range of the circular-
surface reflection coefficients ( K rc ) is about 0.02~0.4. For QCB impacted by irregular waves, the synthesis
reflection coefficients ( K R ) vary from about 0.15 to 0.75 and the related circular-surface reflection
coefficients ( K RC ) corresponding to the highest one-tenth wave is about 0.05~0.50. No matter for
regular or irregular waves, the resolved reflection coefficients ( K r or K R ) are larger than the circular-
surface reflection coefficients ( K rc or K RC ) as a whole (see Figs. 4 and 9).
The frequency analysis of reflection coefficients of component waves is utilized to discuss the
intrinsic reflective performances of QCB under irregular waves (see Fig. 8). Overall, the reflection
coefficients of component waves within the lower frequency band are larger than those within the
higher frequency band. It is also found that the reflection coefficients of component wave corresponding
to the spectral peak frequency ( K RP ( f p ) ) are almost the same as the related synthesis reflection
coefficients ( K R ).
On the whole, the comparison between the results of regular and irregular waves for QCB shows
that the synthesis reflection coefficients for irregular waves are larger than the resolution reflection
coefficients for regular waves, as shown in Fig. 10.
The relative freeboard height ( hc / H i ) can be considered as a more important fact on the
reflection and transmission performances of QCB than the wave steepness ( H i / Li ) (see Figs. 4 and 7).
No matter for regular or irregular waves, the reflection coefficients increase as hc / H i increases. In
addition, the influence of the wave steepness ( H i / Li ) upon the reflective performances for irregular
waves is slightly stronger than that for regular waves.
In addition, the transmission coefficients of QCB under regular waves vary with inversed
parabolic form as hc / H i increases. It can be seen from Fig. 4, the transmission coefficients increase
from about 0.6 to 1.0 as water level fall relatively within hc / H i < −0.30 and conversely decrease from
about 1.0 to 0.2 as hc / H i increases from −0.30 to 0.60.
On the basis of wave energy conservation, a new wave energy loss parameter K Eloss is defined to
describe the ratio of dissipated wave energy to the original gross wave energy within the process of
478 SHI Yan-jiao et al. / China Ocean Eng., 25(3), 2011, 469 − 478

wave-structure interaction by utilizing the hydraulic coefficients of breakwater. As can be derived from
Fig. 6, the loss of wave energy for emerged breakwater is relatively larger than that for submerged
breakwater and the minimum K Eloss occurs at hc / H i ≈−0.2.
Based on the above discusses on experimental results, it can be concluded that the hydraulic
performances of QCB and SCB are almost the same, which may be resulted from the similar up-wave
profiles of both breakwaters.

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