Experimental Study and Numerical Modeling of Wave Induced Pore Pressure Attenuation Inside a Rubble Mound Breakwater

The main objective of this paper is to study the attenuation of the wave induced pore pressures inside the core of a rubble mound breakwater. The knowledge of the distribution and the attenuation of the pore pressures is important for the design of a stable and safe breakwater. The pore pressure attenuation is studied using experimental data (in Section 2) and using a numerical wave flume (in Section 3). The experimental study includes the analysis of large scale data from a physical breakwater model and prototype data from the Zeebrugge breakwater. The large scale data are taken from literature and have been re-analysed in detail with respect to the attenuation characteristics. The analysis follows the method by Burcharth et al. (1999) and confirms the practical calculation method for the attenuation of the pore pressure in the core given in this reference. The attenuation of pore pressures in a breakwater core is also studied in the numerical wave flume VOFbreak. The numerical results are compared to the results from the experimental study.