EXPERIMENTAL DATA ON THE OVERTOPPING OF SEAWALLS BY WAVES

Abstract

In the past it has been found that serious damage and breaching of seawalls is most frequently caused by overtopping. Hence for the design of seawalls data must be available about the overtopping by waves of the different profiles that might be possible. Naturally the conditions under which damage is caused to the seawall also depend on the type of construction and the materials used, for example: the stability of grass covered dikes can be endangered seriously by water flowing over the inner slope. In many designs the necessary height of a seawall has been defined such that not more than 2% of the waves overtop the crest, under chosen design conditions. This criterion has been determined on the assumption that the overtopping must remain very small. Some overtopping has to be accepted because no maximum value for wave height and wave run-up can be given, unless of course the wave height is limited by fore-shore conditions. Unfortunately this criterion gives no information about the volume and concentration of water overtopping the crest in each instance. Moreover it is of interest to know how this overtopping varies with other conditions, such as changes in the significant wave height. Information about the overtopping by waves was obtained from model investigations on simple plane slopes w^th inclinations varying from 1 : 8 to 1 : 2. The experiments were made in a windflume where wind generated waves as well as regular waves were employed. Using wind generated waves, conditions from nature regarding the distribution of wave heights could be reproduced. It appeared that the overtopping depends on the irregularity of the waves and that the same effects cannot be reproduced using regular paddle generated waves. In this paper a description of the model and the results of these tests are given. Investigations are m progress on composite slopes, including the reproduction of conditions for a seawall which suffered much overtopping but remained practically undamaged during the flood of 1953.