HYDRAULIC MODEL EXPERIMENTS ON SEAWALLS

The preliminary analysis of a set of three-dimensional tests on an infinite beach backed by a seawall is presented. The longshore sediment transport rate in front of the seawall was found to decrease as the beach in front of the seawall eroded. The location of the breaker peaks in the suspended and bed load sediment transport rate moved slightly offshore, and the bedload peak in the swash zone disappeared as the beach eroded. The local ratio of H/d approached a constant value as the beach eroded for most of the tests, however the erosion depth in front of seawalls cannot be simply related to offshore wave height