  The impact of a plunging breaking wave (wavelength approximately 1.3m) on a
rigidly mounted rigid cube structure (dimension 0.31m) that is partially
submerged is explored through experiments and numerical calculations. The
experiments are carried out in a wave tank and the breaker is generated with a
mechanical wave maker using a dispersive focusing technique. The water-surface
profile upstream of the front face of the cube and in its vertical centerplane
is measured using a cinematic laser-induced fluorescence technique. The
three-dimensional flow in the wave tank is simulated directly using the
Numerical Flow Analysis (NFA) code. The experiments and the calculations are
used to explore the details of the wave-impact process and, in particular, the
formation of the high-speed vertical jet that is found on the front face of the
cube under some impact conditions.

Fluid Dynamics