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This thesis considers the feasibility of using inflatable, submerged, moored structures as breakwaters. These structures can be used to protect the shoreline from erosion, and near-shore and offshore structures from damaging waves caused by severe storms. They can be used continuously or, when not in use, deflated and out of the way. Although most existing breakwaters are rigid structures that are fixed to the ocean floor and project above the water surface, the shift has been towards more temporary, transportable breakwaters. Inflatable breakwaters have numerous advantages.

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A three-dimensional, nonlinear dynamic analysis is conducted on a fully submerged, rigid, solid cylinder to be used as a breakwater. The breakwater could potentially be used as a single cylinder to protect small structures. Alternatively, multiple cylinders could be positioned in series to protect shorelines, harbors, or moored vessels from destructive incident water waves. The cylinder is positioned with its axis horizontal and is moored to the seafloor with four symmetrically placed massless mooring lines connected at the ends of the cylinder.

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Designing breakwaters on steep foreshores faces some problems. At present, it is not known what the influence of the steepness of the bottom slope is. Design formulae for armour layers don’t take the bottom steepness into account in a direct manner. In theory, in irregular waves, wave average heights in shallow water become higher as the bottom becomes steeper, but clear formulae don’t exist.

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Especially for breakwaters of intermediate height overtopping is an important value, both for the transmitted wave height in the basin behind the breakwater, as well as for the stability of the blocks on the inner slope. Rather reliable formulae exist for the determination of overtopping for normal riprap structures, as well as for classic (double layer) Tetrapod structures.
 

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Current environmental and financial restrictions on harbour developments dictate that alternatives to traditional ked rubble mound and caisson breakwaters are required. The most common solution is the Floating Breakwater, a concept which utilizes reflection, dissipation, and/or transformation to reduce incident wave energy. The design and construction of these for exposed coastal regions present major engineering challenges.
 

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The efficiency of elastically moored floating breakwaters is studied in the present study using a finite-difference; mathematical model based on the Boussinesq type equations. The flow under the floating breakwater is treated as confined flow separately. The pressure field beneath the floating structure is determined by solving implicitly the Laplace equation for the potential Φ of the confined flow using appropriate boundary conditions. The dynamic equations of sway, heave and roll motions of the breakwater are also solved with the consequent adjustments of the continuity equation.

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