Hydrodynamic characteristics of a floating vegetated platform exposed to regular waves

This study proposes a breakwater consisting of a floating vegetated platform (FVP) for environmentally friendly protection of coastal areas. A series of laboratory experiments and a two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics numerical model were used to examine the hydrodynamic characteristics of an FVP under regular waves, where the platform was simulated as a rigid body, and the vegetation was simulated as porous media. The results indicate that, with increasing wave steepness, the wave reflection and transmission coefficients decrease, as do the surge, heave, and pitch response amplitude operators of the FVP. However, the wave energy dissipation coefficient and the dimensionless maximum sea-side and lee-side mooring-line forces increase. The fitted wave transmission coefficient and the dimensionless maximum sea-side and lee-side mooring-line forces decrease with increasing relative FVP length, as do the surge, heave, and pitch response amplitude operators. However, the wave energy dissipation coefficient increases. In addition, the genetic programing method used to derive the empirical formulas for predicting the hydrodynamic coefficients of FVP is verified by experimental or numerical results.