EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE BREAKING WAVE IMPACT ON RIGID AND ELASTIC PLATES

Coastal and offshore deformable structures such as flexible breakwaters, wave energy converters, and Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) hulls are vulnerable to ocean hydrodynamic loads, as structural deformation may happen in these interactions. The structural deformation can lead to decreased wave reflection, wave loading, and runup on the steep-fronted coastal structures in non-breaking waves (Hu et al., 2023; Hu and Li, 2023a). When flexible structures face breaking waves, their structural integrity is challenged. Tremendous impact pressure with a short duration can be produced when water waves are close to or directly break on the structures, which were observed to cause failure cases in practical engineering (Oumeraci, 1994; Tanimoto and Takahashi, 1994). Most previous studies have been devoted to the violent breaking wave impacts on rigid structures (Bullock et al., 2007; Ravindar and Sriram, 2021). Therefore, the understanding of hydroelasticity in the breaking wave impact is still lacking. Hu and Li (2023b) investigated four distinctive breaking wave impacts on a flexible wall using a fully coupled computational model. However, detailed laboratory experiments of breaking wave impact on elastic structures are still required to reveal the mechanics. In this study, we aim to investigate the breaking wave impact on rigid and elastic plates by a small-scale laboratory experiment. The wave surface elevation, impact pressure, free surface profiles, and structural response subjected to the high-aeration impact are presented.