Effect of core porosity on stability and run-up of breakwaters

The commonly used formulae like Hudson's [(1959), Laboratory investigations of rubblemound breakwaters. WES report, Vicksburg], Iribarren's or Vander meer's [(1988), Rockslopes and gravel beaches under wave attack. Ph.D. thesis, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands], do not give us the design cross section of a rubblemound breakwater for varying core porosity values.

The paper presents the results of the experimental study carried out to compute the effects of core porosity on the stability and run-up characteristics of rubblemound breakwaters. Regular waves were made to attack the structure, with different core porosity values in a normal direction. The porosity of the armour and the secondary layers was neglected.

It was observed that as core porosity increased the stability also increased considerably within the limits of the experimental data values. This may be due to large inflow and energy dissipation within the core of the structure. The run-up on the rubblemound slope was found to decrease with the increase in the porosity for the same reason.