Unified empirical relations for total inline wave forces on pile-supported structures in regular and irregular waves

Wave forces on different pile-supported structures in regular and irregular waves are investigated experimentally. As a new characteristic geometric scale, an effective diameter is proposed to analyze the dimensionless total wave forces. With the effective diameter, unified empirical formulas describing the dimensionless wave forces versus Keulegan-Carpenter (KC) number are obtained for different complex pile-supported structures in regular and irregular waves.