Influence of Parapets on Wave Overtopping on Mound Breakwaters with Crown Walls

Abstract

Background literature on the influence of parapets on the overtopping of mound breakwaters is limited. In this study, numerical tests were conducted using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to analyze the influence of nine crown wall geometries (seven with parapets). The CFD model was implemented in OpenFOAM® and successfully validated with laboratory tests. A new estimator of the dimensionless mean wave-overtopping discharges (logQ) on structures with parapets is proposed. The new estimator depends on the estimation of logQ of the same structure without a parapet. The effects on wave overtopping of the parapet angle (εp), parapet width (wp), and parapet height (hp) were analyzed. Low values of εp and wp/hp ≈ 1 produced the highest parapet effectiveness to reduce the mean wave-overtopping discharges.