ARE REDUCED-SCALE EXPERIMENTS OF WAVE DAMPING BY VEGETATION SUITABLE FOR ENGINEERING WITH NATURE?

Wave damping by vegetation has been included in many numerical models for coastal engineering primarily through a parameterized expression the wave height decay following Mendez and Losada (2004). CD is an empirical coefficient often derived from reduced-scale laboratory experiments which alpha measured directly. Multiple values of can be determined series tests given as function Reynolds number, Re. These relations are subsequently used along with properties to estimate rate models. Although shown have Reynolds-dependence, it well known that similitude cannot held between model prototype when Froude applied. This disparity raises fundamental scaling issue explored this paper: Are drag coefficients obtained suitable design?