Hydrodynamic Performance of A Floating Breakwater System Under the Terrain of Islands and Reefs: A 3D Experimental Study

With the acceleration of marine construction in China,the exploitation and utilization of resources from islands and reefs are necessary.To prevent and dissipate waves in the process of resource exploitation and utilization,a more effective method is to install floating breakwaters near the terrain of islands and reefs.The terrain around islands and reefs is complex,and waves undergo a series of changes due to the impact of the complex terrain in transmission.It is important to find a suitable location for floating breakwater systems on islands and reefs and investigate how the terrain affects the system’s hydrodynamic performance.This paper introduces a three-cylinder floating breakwater design.The breakwater system consists of 8 units connected by elastic structures and secured by a slack mooring system.To evaluate its effectiveness,a 3D model experiment was conducted in a wave basin.During the experiment,a model resembling the islands and reefs terrain was created on the basis of the water depth map of a specific region in the East China Sea.The transmission coefficients and motion responses of the three-cylinder floating breakwater system were then measured.This was done both in the middle of and behind the islands and reefs terrain.According to the experimental results,the three-cylinder floating breakwater system performs better in terms of hydrodynamics when it is placed behind the terrain of islands and reefs than in the middle of the same terrain.

The progress in the verification of key technologies for floating structures near islands and reefs

In 2019 a Scientific Research&Demonstration Platform was deployed near islands and reefs in South China Sea by a joint research group of 7 institutes and universities in China.It is a simplified small model of a two-module semi-submersible-type VLFS.The test on site has continued for more than one and half years since then for long-term observations to validate the developed key technologies for design and behavior predictions of floating structures deployed near islands and reefs.An integrated information system was set up to continuously collect and inspect the data of the encountered waves,structure responses,connector forces,mooring line forces,anti-corrosion status of the platform,the performance efficiencies of a floating breakwater nearby and a wave energy converter attached on the breakwater.In this paper,the status of the on-site measurements and validations of the key technologies are briefly described.

On the properties of the Rational Function Spectrum describing waves near islands and reefs in South China Sea

On-site measurements show that water waves near islands and reefs in South China Sea exhibit different properties of wave energy distributions with regard to wave frequencies,among which the most prominent factor is the interplay of swells arising from the West Pacific Ocean and the local wind waves.Observations also show that the breaking waves continuously appear,containing more energy in high frequency components,and the nonlinear characteristics of the waves are important in adjusting the energy distribution.These properties may explain the large discrepancies between the well-accepted wave spectra(for example the P-M spectrum,Neumann spectrum,ITTC spectrum etc.)and the measured wave spectra near islands and reefs in South China Sea.Therefore,a new Rational Function Spectrum is proposed in this paper to describe waves near islands and reefs which turns out to show satisfactory accuracy.It well captures wave power distributions in the form of single and double peaks,at low-and high-frequency regions,as well as nonlinear scale power law.Based on the investigation of the measured data near an island in South China Sea,the relation between the parameters used in the Rational Function Spectrum and the statistical parameters of water waves(significant wave height and wave period)is established.It is noted that the wave properties at low-and high-frequencies are controlled by the local wind velocities at the wave growth stage,but remain constant at the wave decay stage.The parameter peak frequency is only dependent on the wave period corresponding to the maximum wave height.The parameter spectral peak is determined from the wave height and the wave period.These relations help to clarify the physical meanings of the parameters used in the Rational Function Spectrum,and thus provide an alternative spectral form to describe random waves near islands and reefs.

Drivers,Trends,and Patterns of Changing Vegetation-greenness in Nansha Islands,China from 2016 to 2022

Changes in vegetation status generally also represents changes in the ecological health of islands and reefs(IRs).However,studies are limited of drivers and trends of vegetation change of Nansha Islands,China and how they relate to climate change and human activities.To resolve this limitation,we studied changes to the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index(NDVI)vegetation-greenness index for 22 IRs of Nansha Islands during normal and extreme conditions.Trends of vegetation greenness were analyzed using Sen's slope and Mann-Kendall test at two spatial scales(pixel and island),and driving factor analyses were performed by time-lagged partial correlation analyses.These were related to impacts from human activities and climatic factors under normal(temperature,precipitation,radiation,and Normalized Difference Built-up Index(NDBI))and extreme conditions(wind speed and latitude of IRs)from 2016 to 2022.Results showed:1)among the 22 IRs,NDVI increased/decreased significantly in 15/4 IRs,respectively.Huayang Reef had the highest NDVI change-rate(0.48%/mon),and Zhongye Island had the lowest(–0.29%/mon).Local spatial patterns were in one of two forms:dotted-form,and degradation in banded-form.2)Under normal conditions,human activities(characterized by NDBI)had higher impacts on vegetation-greenness than other factors.3)Under extreme conditions,wind speed(R^(2)=0.2337,P<0.05)and latitude(R^(2)=0.2769,P<0.05)provided limited explanation for changes from typhoon events.Our results provide scientific support for the sustainable development of Nansha Islands and the United Nations‘Ocean Decade’initiative.