Vallam Sundar

Abstract: The experimental and theoretical investigations on the behaviour of pontoon-type floating breakwaters are presented. A two-dimensional finite element model is adopted to study the behaviour of pontoon-type floating breakwaters in beam waves. The stiffness coefficients of the slack mooring lines are idealized as the linear stiffness coefficients, which can be derived from the basic catenary equations of the cable. The theoretical model is supported by an experimental programme conducted in a wave flume. The motion responses and mooring forces are measured for three different mooring configurations, and the results are reported and discussed in detail in this paper. The wave attenuation characteristics are presented for the configurations studied.

Abstract: The oscillating water column, OWC device is one of the more promising devices for the extraction of energy from ocean waves. The present study mainly focuses on the influence of bottom profile configuration in the OWC on its hydrodynamic performance. Four different bottom profiles flat, circular curve of radius 300 mm, slope of 1:1 and 1:5 were tested in a wave flume. The said models were simultaneously subjected to both regular and random waves. The hydrodynamic performance was studied in terms of wave amplification factor, wave power absorption coefficient, hydrodynamic efficiency, lip wall pressure ratio (pressure at in front of lip wall/pressure due to incident wave) and air pressure ratio (air pressure/pressure due to incident wave). It is found that the natural period of the system was around 1.9 s. The OWC with circular curve bottom profile exhibited a better performance in terms of its effective wave energy conversion and wave amplification factor inside the chamber. The peak magnitude of hydrodynamic efficiency for circular curve bottom profile was 0.71. The performance of the OWC model is found to be better when closer to the natural period of the device.

Abstract: The reflection characteristics of permeable vertical seawalls has been determined with a numerical model based on the methodology proposed by Ijima et al. (1976). The variation of the reflection coefficients with the porosity of the wall, its friction factor and the relative wall width is studied and compared with the analytical results of Madsen (1983). The numerical model was further applied to study the reflection characteristics of sloping permeable walls. The behaviour of vertical and sloping permeable walls in reflecting wave energy is discussed in detail. In addition, numerical results on K r for a seawall placed on a sloping bed are also obtained and compared with the results of a wall on a flat bed.

Abstract: Diffraction of linear waves around a group of dual porous cylinders consisting of a thin and porous outer cylinder with an impermeable inner cylinder is investigated analytically based on the eigenfunction expansion method proposed by Spring and Monkmeyer [Spring BH, Monkmeyer PL. Interaction of plane waves with vertical cylinders. In: Proceedings 14th international coastal engineering conference. 1974. p. 1828–47] and further modified by Linton and Evans [Linton CM, Evans DV. The interaction of waves with arrays of vertical circular cylinders. Journal of Fluid Mechanics 1990;215:549–69]. The present formulation is an extension of the work of Wang and Ren [Wang KH, Ren X. Wave interaction with a concentric porous cylinder system. Ocean Engineering 1994;21(4):343–60], wherein; the interaction of linear waves with a single concentric porous cylinder system was studied. This paper aims at investigating the influence of multiple interactions between the cylinders in the group on the hydrodynamic wave forces, wave run-up and free-surface elevation in their vicinity. Further, the study focuses on the variation of the forces and run-up on the individual cylinders within the group compared to that on isolated cylinders.

Abstract: Ocean waves and forces induced by them on offshore structures are random in nature. Experience has shown that short term statistics of wave heights can be described by the Rayleigh distribution for narrow band spectra (Longuet-Higgins, 1952) and that the long term statistics or the evaluation of design wave is based on certain well known extreme value distribution such as mixed Frechet distribution (Thom, 1973a, b). This paper presents a new application of the double bounded probability density function to describe the ocean wave statistics. The prime importance is to estimate the most probable maximum wave height for offshore structural designs.

Abstract: Wind speeds over the world’s oceans have increased over the past two decades, as have wave heights. Studies of climate change typically consider measurements or predictions of temperature over extended periods of time. Climate, however, is much more than temperature. Over the oceans, changes in wind speed and the surface gravity waves generated by such winds play an important role. We used a 23-year database of calibrated and validated satellite altimeter measurements to investigate global changes in oceanic wind speed and wave height over this period. We find a general global trend of increasing values of wind speed and, to a lesser degree, wave height, over this period. The rate of increase is greater for extreme events as compared to the mean condition.

Abstract: Kumaraswamy [Generalized probability density-function for double-bounded random-processes, J. Hydrol. 462 (1980), pp. 79–88] introduced a distribution for double-bounded random processes with hydrological applications. For the first time, based on this distribution, we describe a new family of generalized distributions (denoted with the prefix ‘Kw’) to extend the normal, Weibull, gamma, Gumbel, inverse Gaussian distributions, among several well-known distributions. Some special distributions in the new family such as the Kw-normal, Kw-Weibull, Kw-gamma, Kw-Gumbel and Kw-inverse Gaussian distribution are discussed. We express the ordinary moments of any Kw generalized distribution as linear functions of probability weighted moments (PWMs) of the parent distribution. We also obtain the ordinary moments of order statistics as functions of PWMs of the baseline distribution. We use the method of maximum likelihood to fit the distributions in the new class and illustrate the potentiality of the new model with a...

Abstract: Evolution of Design Method Against Random Waves Statistical Properties and Spectral of Sea Waves Transformation and Deformation of Random Sea Waves Design of Breakwaters Design of Coastal Dikes and Seawalls Probabilistic Design of Harbor Facilities Harbor Tranquility and Vessel Mooring Hydraulic Model Tests with Random Waves Theoretical Description of Random Sea Waves Statistical Theory of Irregular Waves Techniques of Random Wave Analysis 2D Computation of Wave Transformation with Random Breaking and Nearshore Currents Statistical Analysis of Extreme Waves Prediction and Control of Beach Deformation Processes.

Abstract: The interaction of waves with obstacles is an everyday phenomenon in science and engineering, arising for example in acoustics, electromagnetism, seismology and hydrodynamics. The mathematical theory and technology needed to understand the phenomenon is known as multiple scattering, and this book is the first devoted to the subject. The author covers a variety of techniques, describing first the single-obstacle methods and then extending them to the multiple-obstacle case. A key ingredient in many of these extensions is an appropriate addition theorem: a coherent, thorough exposition of these theorems is given, and computational and numerical issues around them are explored. The application of these methods to different types of problems is also explained; in particular, sound waves, electromagnetic radiation, waves in solids and water waves. A comprehensive bibliography of some 1400 items rounds off the book, which will be an essential reference on the topic for applied mathematicians, physicists and engineers.