China Ocean Eng., Vol. 27, No. 6, pp.

821 – 828
© 2013 Chinese Ocean Engineering Society and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
DOI 10.1007/s13344-013-0067-z, ISSN 0890-5487

Flow Field Analysis of Submerged Horizontal Plate Type Breakwater*

ZHANG Zhi-qiang (张志强)a, b, LUAN Mao-tian (栾茂田)a, b

and WANG Ke (王 科)c, 1

a
State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Dalian University of Technology,
Dalian 116024, China
b
Institute of Geotechnical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
c
State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis for Industrial Equipment, Department of Engineering Mechanics,
Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China

(Received 15 May 2012; received revised form 2 November 2012; accepted 10 March 2013)

ABSTRACT
Submerged horizontal plate can be considered as a new concept breakwater. In order to reveal the wave elimination
mechanism of this type breakwater, boundary element method is utilized to investigate the velocity field around plate
carefully. The flow field analysis shows that the interaction between incident wave and reverse flow caused by
submerged plate will lead to the formation of wave elimination area around both sides of the plate. The velocity
magnitude of flow field has been reduced and this is the main reason of wave elimination.

Key words: boundary element method; plate type breakwater; flow field analysis

1. Introduction

Owing to the capable of maintaining water exchange, the floating breakwater has important
practical engineering interests in the coastal erosion area, aquaculture area, and the peripheral
protection area of deep-sea platforms. Therefore, the study of its hydrodynamic characteristics has
aroused increasing attention in recent years. The main design concept of this type breakwater is the
attenuation of part of the wave energy, which can keep the huge wave forces from acting directly on
the marine structures. Besides, the free water exchanges behind the breakwater can keep the sea water
clean and marine ecosystem uninfluenced.
Many mathematical derivations and experiments have been done in the study of the
hydrodynamic characteristics of floating breakwater. Parson and Martin (1992) established a high
order singular integral equation, and studied the diffraction of the submerged horizontal plate by
solving the discontinuous velocity potential on its both sides. Neelamani and Reddy (1992), Yu and
Chwang (1993) solved the diffraction problem of the horizontal plate in finite water depth using the
eigenvalue approximation in finite region. Hu et al. (2002) presented a two-dimensional analytical
solution to study the reflection and transmission of linear water waves propagating past a submerged

* This research is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Dalian University of Technology (Grant No. DUT10LK43)
and the National Key Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2013CB036101).
1 Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
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horizontal plate and through a vertical porous wall. Usha and Gayathri (2005) considered the scattering
of surface waves by a submerged, horizontal plate or disc, by using eigenfunction expansions within
the finite domain. Zheng et al. (2007) studied the hydrodynamic coefficients and wave exciting forces
for long horizontal rectangular and circular structures by boundary element method. Dong et al. (2008)
studied wave transmission coefficients of floating breakwaters by experiment. Liu et al. (2009)
investigated the hydrodynamic performance of a submerged two-layer horizontal plate by the matched
eigenfunction expansion method.
However, up to now, no clear and direct elaboration has been made about wave elimination
mechanism from the viewpoint of flow field analysis. Therefore, the present study adopts the boundary
element method to solve the diffraction problems of the submerged horizontal plate and obtain the
distribution of velocity field around the plate. The numerical result confirms that this method is
efficient to the analysis of the velocity field around submerged horizontal plate.
In Section 2, mathematical models and numerical scheme concerning the velocity field are
elaborated. Section 3 provides the numerical results and discussion. Conclusion is drawn in Section 4.

2. Coordinate System and Theoretical Formulas

2.1 Governing Equation and Boundary Conditions

Fig. 1 shows the definition of Cartesian coordinate system oxy and plate location. This
coordinate system is stationary and related to the undisturbed position of the free surface. The origin
o is located on free surface, positive x -axis is from left to right and y -axis is positive upward. The
incident wave is propagating from right to left along x-axis. Besides, plate length is B  2a , plate
thickness is TT and plate submergence is H S . It is also supposed that the plate is rigid and thin, and
normal vector is positively pointing out of the fluid domain.

Fig. 1. Calculation sketch of the submerged horizontal plate.

The fluid is assumed to be non-viscous, incompressible and irrotational. Supposing the motion of
the object is harmonic oscillation, then, the fluid velocity can be expressed by the gradient of velocity
potential Φ and Φ can be defined as  ( x, y; t )  Re[ ( x, y )e  it ] , where Re[ ( x, y )e  it ] denotes
the real part,  is the frequency of incident wave, t is time, i  1 , and  is the spatial
complex velocity potential irrelevant to time. The velocity potential  satisfies Laplace equation and
related boundary conditions (Faltinsen, 1991; Wang et al., 2011a).
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Based on linear assumption, complex velocity potential  can be decomposed as follows:

3
  I  D  i  xii , (1)
i 1

where xi is the motion amplitude of the object, I is the incident potential,  D

is the diffraction
potential, S  I  D is the scattering potential and i is the radiation potential for sway, heave,
and roll, respectively.
The boundary condition for diffraction and radiation potentials is:
D I i
 ,  ( n1 , n2 , n3 ) , (2)
n n n
where, n1 , n2 , and n3 are the components of normal vector on the object surface and n1  nx , n  n , 2 y

n3  ( y  y0 )nx  ( x  x0 )ny , ( x0 , y0 ) being the rotating center of the object. The incident wave
potential I can be expressed as:
igA
I   e
Ky iKx
, (3)

2
where,  is the wave circular frequency, K  is the wave number, g is the acceleration of
g
gravity, and A is the amplitude of incident wave.

2.2 Boundary Integral Equation

The hydrodynamic of submerged horizontal plate can be solved by establishing integral equation
on the object surface with Green’s theorem. Following is the boundary integral equation about i and
D :
G ( P, Q)  (Q)
C ( P) 
  ( P) 
S n
ds 
 G ( P, Q ) 
S n
ds , (4)

where  ( P )  (i or D ) , P ( x, y ) is field point, Q  ,  is source point, G  P, Q  is Green’s

function, and C is solid angle. G  P, Q  can be expressed as follows (Wang et al., 2011b):
G  P, Q   lg r1  lg r2  2 I C . (5)
where
r12   x      y    , r22   x      y    ;
2 2 2 2
(6)
e
u y  
 cos[u ( x   )]



I C  lim du . (7)
 0
0 u  K  i

2.3 Flow Field Velocity

If  represents scattering potential S , radiation potential R (1 , 2 , 3 ) and total velocity
potential  respectively, the velocity of flow field (u, v) induced by  can be obtained through
the following equation:
824 ZHANG Zhi-qiang et al. / China Ocean Eng., 27(6), 2013, 821 − 828

 
u , v , (8)
x y
where  ( p ) at any point p can be solved by source point  (q ) as follows:
G  (q )

 ( p)    (q)
n 
ds  G ( p, q )
n
ds . (9)

Supposing the fluid domain is discritized into finite elements, the velocity of any point in the fluid
domain can be calculated as:
 N i 
 
u   
    i T ,
1
v   J (10)
   N i 
  
 
where [ J ] is Jacobian determinant, N i is shape function, and  and  are local coordinates.

3. Flow Field Analysis

For further revealment of the wave elimination mechanism of plate type breakwater, this section
explores the velocity of water particles in the whole process of wave elimination. In the calculation, the
most effective wave condition is chosen when the plate location is H S  0.05 m , TT  0.005 m and
B  0.4 m (Wang et al., 2011a). Besides, three kinds of incident waves KB / 2  0.4, 0.8, 1.2 are
selected and the amplitude of incident wave is 0.02 m.
The sway velocity field is small due to the plate thickness, the result is not discussed here. In
following results, figures ‘a’ and ‘b’ are the velocity field of radiation potential 2 and 3 ,
respectively; figure ‘c’ is the velocity field of scattering potential S ; and figure ‘d’ is the velocity
field of whole potential  . Figure ‘e’ is also the velocity field of potential  , but the calculation area
is extended to domain (2.0 m, 2.0 m) in order to display the velocity field far away from the plate.
The above mentioned results are all corresponding to the waves in crest time.

3.1 Velocity Field at KB / 2  0.4

Fig. 2 shows the calculated results of velocity field for submerged horizontal plate when
KB / 2  0.4 , where the transmission coefficient is 0.3 (Wang et al., 2011a) and the heave wave
exciting force is the largest (Wang et al., 2011b). Since plate is symmetric about y-axis, the generated
radiation heave flow field (u2 , v2 ) is symmetric and roll flow field (u3 , v3 ) is anti-symmetric.
For the roll motion, the flow directions of water below the plate and above the plate are opposite,
and the velocity amplitude below the plate is smaller than that above the plate. That is the
characteristic of roll motion. When the plate heaves, water particles around the plate also reciprocate
vertically at the same time. Since the plate is thin and close to the free surface, the plate length is
decisive for the change of velocity field. It can be seen from Fig. 2d that water particle above the plate
 ZHANG Zhi-qiang et al. / China Ocean Eng., 27(6), 2013, 821 − 828 825

at crest time is separated into two parts and flow horizontally to the fluid field with opposite direction.
This wave-plate interaction repeats reciprocally. The interaction between reverse flow above the plate
and the incident wave leads to the formation of wave elimination area in the head-sea of the plate,
where fluid velocity changes dramatically. From Fig. 2e we can see that the velocity magnitude in head
sea is much larger than that behind the plate. As a result, the reverse flow caused by submerged plate
should be the main reason of wave elimination.

Fig. 2. Velocity field for submerged horizontal plate at KB / 2  0.4 .

826 ZHANG Zhi-qiang et al. / China Ocean Eng., 27(6), 2013, 821 − 828

3.2 Velocity Field at KB / 2  0.8

Because the curve of transmitted coefficient is symmetric around KB / 2  0.6 (Wang et al., 2011a),
at KB / 2  0.8 , transmission coefficient is also about 0.3. That means if we want to obtain the same
wave transmitted coefficient, a smaller plate length should be chosen. Fig. 3 shows that, at KB / 2  0.8 ,
the velocity field around the plate is almost similar to that at KB / 2  0.4 , but the velocity magnitude
and the wave elimination area are smaller.

Fig. 3. Velocity field for submerged horizontal plate at KB / 2  0.8 .

 ZHANG Zhi-qiang et al. / China Ocean Eng., 27(6), 2013, 821 − 828 827

3.3 Velocity Field at KB / 2  1.2

It can be seen from Figs. 4a and 4b that the variations of heave and roll velocity field is also
similar to those at KB / 2  0.4 and 0.8 . But different from KB / 2  0.4 and 0.8 , we can see from
Fig. 4e that the velocity field around the plate within one wave length is little disturbed and wave
elimination is not effective. That is mainly because the shallow water above the plate does not
generate strong horizontal flow.

Fig. 4. Velocity field for submerged horizontal plate at KB / 2  1.2 .

828 ZHANG Zhi-qiang et al. / China Ocean Eng., 27(6), 2013, 821 − 828

4. Conclusions

This study explores the flow field distribution around submerged horizontal plate under different
wave conditions by use of boundary element method. It is found that:
(1) The heave flow field is symmetric, and the roll flow field is anti-symmetric. Because of the
existence of submerged plate, the incident flow field is disturbed by the plate radiation and diffraction.
(2) The shallow water effect will generate reverse current above plate and flow horizontally to the
edges of the plate. The interaction between reverse flow and incident wave leads to the formation of
wave elimination area around both sides of the plate, where fluid velocity changes dramatically. As a
result, the velocity magnitude has been reduced and this is the main reason of wave elimination.

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