Stability of rubble-mound breakwaters under tsunami first impact and overflow based on laboratory experiments

Recent tragic tsunami events, like those that occurred in the Indian Ocean in 2004, and in Japan in 2011, have revealed the need of further work to reduce tsunami risk in coastal areas. An important aspect towards risk reduction is the study of the interaction between tsunami waves and coastal structures as these are the first to receive the tsunami's energy. Dikes and breakwaters must have an adequate structural behavior and maintain some functionality and operability under tsunami attacks to be able to contribute to the reduction of its consequences. Within this scope, laboratory experiments on scaled models of two typical Mediterranean rubble-mound breakwater typologies under tsunami waves were conducted for the first time. The tsunami's action was split into 2 parts: (1) the first impact of solitons was tested by means of large solitary waves and, (2) the subsequent overflow was approached by applying a pump-driven wave maker. The damage on the breakwaters due to these actions was measured and assessed. The result is an in-deep analysis of the relationships among Stability Number, Damage Level and Number of tsunami waves. The outcome of this analysis includes the development of a set of formulae that provide, in the range of the conducted tests, the value of the Damage Parameter, so that tsunami actions can be taken into account in the design of rubble mound structures. Finally, based on the results of these experiments, the threshold values of the Damage Parameter used to characterize damage in armors (Initiation of damage, initiation of destruction, destruction) was particularized for tsunami actions.