Viscous free surface effect on coastal embankment hydrodynamics

A finite-differnece method was used to calculate the nonlinear hydrodynamic pressures acting on the coastal embankment faces by seismic-wave actions. The nonlinearity of free surface flow, convective acceleration, viscosity and surface tension of fluid are included in the analysis. The kinematic and dynamic free surface boundary conditions are employed for calculating the horizontal fluid velocity, pressure at the free surface and the surface profile of the fluid. The time-dependent water surface is transformed to the horizontal plane, and the flow field is mapped onto a rectangular, making it convenient to model the complex sea bottom geometry and the wavy water surface by the finite-difference method. Fully nonlinear and weakly nonlinear dynamic free surface conditions are used and compared. The effects of surface tension of fluid are also discussed. The nonslip boundary condition is applied on the most part of the interface between fluid and solid face, except the region near the intersection between free surface and wall face. The numerical results are presented for various water depths and ground motion intensities, and their associate viscous effects on coastal embankment hydrodynamics are discussed.