M. H. Meylan

Flexural-gravity wave scattering by an array of vertical porous barriers of various configurations is investigated in finite water depth from the viewpoint of blocking dynamics. A scattering matrix is introduced for the velocity potentials using the canonical eigenfunction expansion method developed for a single propagating wave mode to account for the multiple propagating wave modes. Subsequently, appropriate matching conditions are applied at the interface boundaries and edges to solve the physical problem. Apart from multiple barriers of equal length, the efficiency of four different barrier configurations of unequal lengths is investigated. This study shows that out of these four barrier configurations, the convex and increasing order of the barrier arrangements are more effective as wave-dissipating systems than the concave and decreasing order of the barriers. Bragg reflection occurs in the case of two or more barriers for a specific value of porosity and suitable barrier configuration, whose amplitude decreases with an increase in the number of barriers due to the dissipation of wave energy. The presence of three propagating wave modes in the blocking paradigm leads to mode conversion within a certain range of the frequency space. Both the scattering and dissipation coefficients are influenced by the wave energy transfer rates and the amplitudes of incident, reflected, and transmitted wave modes. This investigation exhibits the presence of discontinuities in the scattering coefficients at frequencies where blocking and mode conversion occur. The frequency domain results are used to simulate the plate displacement in the time domain by applying the Fourier transform.