FIELD EXPERIMENTS ON WAVE FORCES ACTING ON A HORIZONTAL CYLINDER COVERED BY BARNACLES

A field experiment was carried out to study the influence of marine fouling on wave forces on a horizontal cylinder. Field tests were performed directly at sea at the Marine Energy Laboratory (MEL) of the University of Reggio Calabria. The experimental set-up was composed by an iron frame support, placed at a 1.5 m depth, carefully anchored on the sea bed, supporting a horizontal cylinder 3 m long. Half the length of the cylinder surface had a smooth surface, the second half had a rough surface. The roughness was created artificially through sealed barnacles. A battery of eight pressure transducers was placed in the middle of each cylinder (smooth and rough) to evaluate the wave forces, while two ultrasonic probes were used to detect the free surface and to deduce the wave direction and the values of undisturbed kinematic field at the cylinder.