On the wave damping due to a permeable seabed

Laboratory experiments were performed to study the wave damping induced by a porous bed. During the propagation of waves over a porous medium the wave characteristics change: a significant wave height attenuation of about 20–30% is observed and, in almost all cases, an increase in wavelength. The wave decay is found to depend on the wave characteristics like the wave height, the wavelength and the wave shape. We have also studied the influence of the geometric properties of the porous bed (i.e. thickness and length) on the wave dissipation. It is found that the attenuation of the wave height increases with the permeable bed thickness and that there is a maximum wave dissipation for a length of the porous seabed equal to 2.0–2.5 times the wavelength. A comparison is also made of our findings with available literature results. A parametric study of the wave damping has been performed by varying the values of the resistance coefficients derived by both literature and experiments. Literature analytical models have been applied by using the resistance coefficients that better describe our flow conditions. All models in use underpredict the observed wave attenuation for any sensible values of the resistance coefficients.