LIMITING BATTER (SLOPE) BETWEEN THE BREAKING AND 

 REFLECTION OF WAVES 



by 



Ramon Iribarren Cavanilles 



and 



Casto Nogales Y Olano 



(Highway Engineers) 



One of the interesting subjects treated in the Xtfllth Inter- 

 national Congress of Navigation , Lisbon, is the determination of the 

 limiting conditions between breaking and reflection of waves „ 



This determination is necessary not only for differentiating 

 wave breaking from reflecting embankments or shores, but is also 

 fundamental for the important project of the wave-breaking slopes 

 (rampas rompeolas) or dampers (amortiguadoras) in contrast to re- 

 flecting walls of piers (muros de muelles) in the zones in which the 

 plan of wave travel of the interior of the port indicates the ex- 

 istence of incident waves of some importance and whose successive 

 reflections might be disruptive to its needed calmness 



In justified cases these slopes can be covered with open pile 

 piers (muelles en claraboya), but reflecting walls of piers never 

 should be constructed In these zones of agitation in the interior 

 of a port, and especially not in its angles » 



In connection with this subject, we submit for those interested 

 in the question,, the following quotation from our report, from 

 Section II, 4th Communication, of the cited Congress s 



"It is of great interest to determine the limiting batter 

 between the breaking and reflection of the wave, as a function of 

 its characteristics o There exists theoretically a limiting batter 

 such that both phenomena occur simultaneously, and that at the 

 same time separates them in such manner that, for more severe 

 batters, the wave is reflected, while for gentler batters the wave 

 breaks, but in practice, there is a range of batters on which the 

 wave breaks and reflects partially, one or the other phenomenon pre- 

 dominating until one arrives at a batter of total breaking or of 

 total reflection., One cannot properly speak of gentle and severe 

 batters in an absolute sense, but rather this depends on the 

 characteristics of the wave that impinges „» 



Based on the quadrilateral of approach, which clarifies so 

 many previously inexplicable extremes, we determine in the cited 



* This article has been translated by the Waterways Experiment 

 Station, Vicksburg, Mississippi, and published as Translation 

 No. 50-2, 1950 



