Wave overtopping of a typical coastal structure of the Portuguese coast using a SPH model

Abstract

Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method is a mesh-free, Lagrangian, particle method for modeling freesurface flows. The potential range of applications is very wide (waves, impact on dams, offshore...) as the meshfree technique facilitates the simulation of highly distorted fluids/bodies, whereas Eulerian methods can be difficult to apply. Models based on SPH are an option to address coastal processes, particularly the interaction between waves and coastal structures, i.e. wave overtopping, that is a practical problem in coastal engineering. It involves complicated free surface deformations and SPH model is an ideal approach to simulate such a process. The paper presents an engineering application of SPH model to define the efficiency of a typical coastal structure of the Portuguese coast under stormy conditions. The model is used to characterize the run-up, free surface elevation near the structure and overtopping of the coastal structure, determining the maximum water velocity and water height over the structure. It is shown that numerical results, obtained for the prototype, present a similar trend comparing with data from physical modeling performed in test flume, using a model scale of 1:40.