2012 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science & Engineering Research (CHUSER 2012), December 3-4, 2012, Kota Kinabalu,
Sabah, Malaysia
Wave Interactions with a Floating Breakwater
Hee Min Teh
Civil Engineering Department
Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS
Bandar Seri Iskandar
Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia
heemin.teh@petronas.com.my
Abstract—The present paper describes the hydraulic
performance of a newly developed floating breakwater in regular
waves. Laboratory tests were conducted with the aim of
determining the wave transmission, reflection and energy
dissipation characteristics of the breakwater model under
various wave conditions. A comparison of wave attenuation
ability between the present breakwater and other breakwater
designs with similar geometrical criteria has been made. In
addition, wave interactions with the breakwater are also explored
with respect to the effect of wave steepness and water depth.
Indexed Terms—Floating breakwater; wave attenuation;
wave reflection; energy loss.
I. INTRODUCTION
Floating breakwaters are coastal structures that protect
shore areas, harbours anchorages or basins by intercepting
waves. They are commonly employed to reduce wave action
in the sheltered areas. The advantages of floating breakwaters
as compared to some conventional fixed breakwaters are its
economic value, mobility, short construction period, absence
of toe scour problem, environmental benefits, higher aesthetic
value, adaptability to water level change and independence of
poor foundation.
A wooden structure constructed at Plymouth Port, England
in 1811 appears to be the first floating breakwater of the
modern era for wave protection. Another example that shows
the major utilization of floating breakwater is the Bombardon
breakwater used for protection of naval operations during the
invasion of Normandy in World War II. Since then, the use of
floating breakwaters for wave protection becomes universally
recognized. In 1980s, McCartney classified the existing
floating breakwaters based on their configurations into four
types, namely box-type, pontoon-type, mat-type and tethered-
float-type [1]. Other forms of floating breakwater that were
extensively studied in the past two decades are cylindrical [2],
trapezoidal [3] and plate-type [4,5,6] structures. The box type
breakwaters are most commonly used due to their simplicity in
design. Although they provide higher wave attenuation
efficiency than the other breakwater types, the box-type
978-1-4673-4617-7/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE
Nuzul Izani Mohammed
Integrity & Engineering Department
PETRONAS Carigali Sdn Bhd
Sabah Operations
Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
nuzulizani@petronas.com.my
breakwaters very often provoke severe reflection of waves in
front of the structures [7,8].
In Malaysia, the use of box-type floating breakwaters
becomes prevalent in recreational harbours, marinas and
fishing ports in which a complete tranquility of waves may not
be a necessity. These floating structures are mainly imported
technologies; hence higher unit cost would need to be borne
by the end users. In term of their performance, the box-type
breakwaters provide reasonably good wave attenuation by
reflecting most of the incident waves [9,10]. This, however,
results in confusing sea states that may pose navigation
difficulty to the sea vessels in the vicinity of the structures.
This research aims at (i) developing an innovative design
of floating breakwater that would serve as an energy
dissipater, and (ii) quantifying the hydraulic characteristics of
the breakwater. Fig. 1 shows the schematic view of the
floating breakwater developed in this study. The breakwater
model has dimensions of 0.20 m width, 0.29 m length and
0.10 m height. The two ‘arms’ at the top of the main body is
created to facilitate wave breaking at the structure; whereas
the two ‘legs’ at the bottom is to enhance the weight of the
breakwater barrier against wave actions. The breakwater
model was made of lightweight concrete and subsequently
coated with fiberglass for greater durability. The overall
density was 650 kg/m3 and gave a freeboard of 0.35 m in static
freshwater. The lateral motion of the tested model was
restrained by a steel rod, which acted as a pile mooring
system, penetrating through the center of the model.
EASE OF USE
10 cm
29 cm
20 cm
Fig. 1. Test model.
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 2012 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science & Engineering Research (CHUSER 2012), December 3-4, 2012, Kota Kinabalu,
Sabah, Malaysia

II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

The hydraulic performance of the breakwater can be

expressed in terms of the coefficients of transmission,
reflection and energy loss. The transmission coefficient, CT is Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
the ratio of the transmitted wave height-to-the incident wave
height, e.g. a lower CT value indicates the breakwater is an Fig. 2. Cross sectional views of test models of different configurations.
effective wave attenuator. The reflection coefficient, CR is
represented by the ratio of the reflected wave height-to-the
incident wave height, e.g. a lower CR value implies the
breakwater is an effective anti-reflection structure. Since the
energy dissipated at the breakwater involves complicated
processes and is difficult to measured experimentally, it is
therefore mathematically estimated based on the principle of
conservation of energy, giving the energy dissipation
coefficient, CL = (1 – CT 2 – CR 2)1/2. A good energy dissipater
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
always yields higher CL values.
III. EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP Fig. 3. Wave-structure interactions for the test models.

The objective of this study is to experimentally investigate

the wave attenuation, reflection and energy dissipation of the
test model under monochromatic waves of various
steepnesses. Extensive experiments were conduction in the
wave-only condition in the 12 m long, 0.3 m wide and 0.45 m
deep wave flume in the Hydraulics Laboratory of Universiti
Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia. The flume was subjected to
steady monochromatic non-breaking waves throughout the
experiments. A flap-type wave maker was installed at one end
of the flume to generate a series of regular waves approaching
the floating structure. At the other end of the flume, a wave
absorber was installed to ensure the test section was free from
waves reflected from the rear of the flume. The test section
was located at a distance of 8 m from the wave maker. A
movable carriage, where the wave probe was fixed, was rested
on two steel rails at the sidewall tops of the flume.
The experimental tests were conducted for more than 10
wave periods ranging from 0.7 s to 1.8 s in water depths of
0.20 m, 0.25 m and 0.30 m. A moving-probe method was
adopted for the measurement of incident and reflected waves
in the wave flume. A probe was slowly traversed along the
direction of wave propagation at the seaward side of the test
model to measure the maximum and minimum of an
amplitude-modulated envelope. Further details of the
measurement technique are given by [11].
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
A. Effect of Breakwater Configuration
Fig. 4 displays wave attenuation ability of Model 1, Model
2 and Model 3. The wave transmission characteristics, which
are expressed in term of CT, are plotted against the relative
breakwater width, B/L (where B is the breakwater width).
Overall, wave transmission behavior of the three models
demonstrates the similar characteristics, i.e. CT decrease with
the increase in B/L and improvement in wave attenuation is
found to be remarkable for the shorter period waves. The
longer the wave period, the greater amount of energy
transmitted below the test models because longer period
waves have their energies distributed more uniformly in the
water column. Hence, these floating breakwater models
perform satisfactorily under short wave and boat-wake
condition.

An attempt was also made to investigate the wave

attenuation performance of the inverted test model (Model 2)
and the box-type model (Model 3); both with similar
dimensions to the present breakwater design (Model 1) in
terms of the width, length and height. Fig. 2 presents the cross
sections of the test models. These test models were subjected
to a water depth of 0.3 m and a series of monochromatic
waves with steepness, Hi/L (where Hi and L are incident wave
height and wavelength respectively) ranging from 0.025 to Fig. 4. Wave transmission of the test models.
0.125, in the wave flume. Wave-structure interactions for the
three test models are demonstrated in Fig. 3.

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 2012 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science & Engineering Research (CHUSER 2012), December 3-4, 2012, Kota Kinabalu,
Sabah, Malaysia

It is also apparent from Fig. 4 that Model 1 outperformed waves with high amplitudes and limited periods. The deeper
the Model 2 and Model 3 by approximately 5% and 20%, the waters, the smaller will be the CL values. The CL values
respectively. It is capable of dampening the incident wave recorded in this study range from 0.50 – 0.95. The high CL
height by almost 80% when breakwater is designed at B/L = values induced by Model 1 suggest that the breakwater is
0.5. The superiority of Model 1 is mainly attributed to the highly dissipative, particularly in shallow waters.
unique geometrical effect of the model that triggers a great
amount of energy reduction. Since Model 1 was identified to
provide functional potentials more, further investigations were
conducted to explore the hydraulic characteristics of Model 1
in various wave conditions in different water depths.
B. Model 1: Wave Transmission
Fig. 5 presents wave transmission past Model 1 in water
depths d = 0.20 m, 0.25 m and 0.30 m. The CT values are
plotted with respect to the relative wave steepness, Hi/gT2,
where g and T are the acceleration of gravity and wave period,
respectively. The relative wave steepness is a dimensionless
parameter that is widely used in the design manuals for coastal
structures. It is clear from the figure that the CT values decline
rapidly with the increase in Hi/gT regardless of the tested
2

water depths. This implies that improvement in wave

attenuation is found to be remarkable for steeper waves. As
water depth increases, the wave suppression ability of the Fig. 5. Wave transmission of Model 1 in different water depths.
model deteriorates considerably. This is mainly due to the fact
that the water column in deeper waters is less obstructed by
the draft of Model 1, resulting in large transmission of wave
energy to its leeward. The breakwater is capable of reducing
80% of the incident wave height at Hi/gT2 = 0.013, 0.014 and
0.018 for water depths of 0.20 m, 0.25 m and 0.30 m,
respectively.
C. Model 1: Wave Reflection
Figure 5 shows the reflectivity of Model 1 in different
water depths. It is seen that the data points representing
different water depths mostly scatter in the range of 0.1 < CR <
0.4. Using the best-fitted curves as references, the change of
CR with respect to the relative wave steepness is almost
negligible for Hi/gT < 0.008. It gives an average CR of 0.25
2

regardless of water depths. Nevertheless, at Hi/gT > 0.008 the

2

CR values diminishes as water depth increases. In general, Fig. 6. Wave reflection of Model 1 in different water depths.
Model 1 can be regarded as a weak reflector as it only triggers
a reflection of 16% of the incident wave energy. Thus it is
deemed to be suitable for use at sensitive sites where the effect
of standing waves is least wanted.
D. Model 1: Energy Loss
The mechanisms of energy dissipation observed in the
experiments were (i) wave breaking at the seaward ‘arm’ of
the model, (ii) wave run-up on the seaward ‘arm’ of the
model, (iii) wave overtopping, (iv) wave run-down at the
shoreward ‘arm’ of the model, and (v) vortices formed at the
bottom edges of the floating model. The energy loss posed by
these hydraulic phenomena is estimated by the coefficient of
energy dissipation, CL. Figure 7 presents the relationship
between CL and Hi/gT in various water depths. Overall, CL
2

increases with the increasing Hi/gT irrespective of the water

2

depths tested. This implies that the breakwater dissipated

Fig. 7. Energy loss of Model 1 in different water depths.
greater amount of energy when exposed to steeper waves, i.e.

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 2012 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science & Engineering Research (CHUSER 2012), December 3-4, 2012, Kota Kinabalu,
Sabah, Malaysia

V. CONCLUSIONS REFERENCES
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