Wave mechanics and coastal defense

Experimental research has been carried out in the wave flumes of the Coastal Engineering Laboratory (LIC) and the Hydraulics Laboratory of the Water Engineering and Chemistry Department of Bari Technical University (Italy) in order to analyse different regular and irregular waves breaking on a sloping bottom. The investigation refers particularly to the surf zone, with the aim to develop two themes: the study of velocity and Reynolds shear stress distributions in the shoaling zone of regular and irregular wave fields and the study of turbulence in the breaking region, observing that these two aspects greatly influence many coastal processes, such as undertow currents, sediment transport and action on maritime structures. The experimental data are compared with numerical results obtained with codes such as FUNWAVE and SPH.
One of the aims of this resesrch topic is the coastal defense.
 
Another experimental investigation has been carried out in order to describe the velocity field in a steady, spilling type breaker, generated on a steady current by a submerged hydrofoil. Velocities have been measured with a laser-doppler system.