Comparative Study of Wave Damping on Vertical Wall and Split Chamber Breakwater

Ocean waves are a form of energy that propagates. To protect coastal areas, a structure capa-ble of dissipating this energy is needed. Coastal protection structures may reduce the poten-tial damage caused by wave forces in coastal areas by absorbing wave energy. The Split Chamber is an alternative structure consisting of many chambers attached to the sea-front face of a vertical breakwater designed to reduce wave energy. This study employs physical modeling to evaluate the wave energy damping capability of the Split Chamber structure by comparing wave heights at the front face of the breakwater, with and without a split chamber. Experimental studies were conducted with sinusoidal regular waves (period T=2.4 s; 3.2 s and height H=4 cm, 8 cm, 12 cm) and irregular waves (period T=2.4s; 3.2s and significant height Hs=4 cm, 8 cm, 12 cm) in a laboratory scale. Physical modeling results show that the Split Chamber performs greater damping to shorter wave periods for both regular and irregular waves (20.68% for regular wave T 2.4 s, 9.73% for regular wave T=3.2 s, 32.06% for irregular wave T=2.4 s, and 24.83% for irregular wave T 3.2 s). Regarding the reflection coefficient (Cr), the split chamber shows a potential reduction of about 10 to 40% for regular waves and about 85% to 100% for irregular waves in comparison to the vertical wall breakwater. The Split Chamber structure can dissipate wave energy by up to 20.44% at a wave period of 3.2 s.