Study On The Effectiveness Of A Floating Breakwater With Planted Vegetation

There are 18 thousand miles of coastline and many vast inland lakes in China. More and more production activities occur in the coastal zone and lakes. The traditional breakwaters are not completely enough applicable to meet with the requirements for economic and environmental conditions. It is of significance to develop new types of breakwater with better performances of dissipating waves, which can be suitable to different water depth and ecological environments. Hence, this paper is going to focus on the experimental study on the effectiveness of a floating wave dissipater with vegetation planted.The paper investigated the effectiveness of wave dissipation of a new type of breakwater, which was consisted of a floating structure with vegetation planted. Under the premise that the height of the vegetation was higher than the wave, the factors influenced the effectiveness of wave dissipation of the floating wave dissipater in unidirectional regular wave environments were analyzed. Based on comprehensive experimental flume data, the effectiveness of wave dissipation of the floating wave dissipater with vegetation planted under regular wave were correlated with the plant density, relative width of the structure and wave steepness. The experiment results showed that the plant density and the relative width of the structure were the most important factors affecting the wave dissipation, and this floating wave dissipater with vegetation planted worked reasonably well in wave dissipation.The new type breakwater was design to dissipate waves in Meiliang bay of the Taihu lake. The theoretical value of the effectiveness of wave dissipation may be better than that used in this region, as this new breakwater would occupy smaller water area. It is also in harmony with the surrounding ecological environment.