• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.18-24
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• 2010

Submerged rubble structures include artificial reef and the mound part of the rubble mound breakwater. Artificial reef is a type of the submerged wave absorbing structure installed in a coastal zone to prevent beach erosion and designed to initially reduce the energy of incoming waves so that its run-up height and overtopping quantity can be decreased. In order to ascertain the stability of such submerged rubble structures, minimum weight of the rubble has to be calculated first from the incoming wave height using Hudson's formula or Brebner-Donnelly formula. Based on the calculated minimum weight, a model is built for use in a hydraulic model test carried out to check its stability. The foregoing two formulas used to calculate the minimum weight are empirically derived formulas based on the result of the tests on the rubble mound breakwater and it is, therefore, difficult for us to apply them directly in the calculation of the minimum weight of the submerged structures. Accordingly, this study comes up with a numerical simulation method capable of deformation analysis for rubble structures. This study also tries to identify the deformation mechanism of the submerged rubble structures using the numerical simulation. The method researched through this study will be sufficient for use for usual preparations of the design guidelines for submerged rubble structures.