Sliding is one of the principal failure types of caisson breakwaters and is an essential content of stability examination in caisson breakwater design. Herein, the mass-spring-dashpot model of caisson-base system is used to simulate the vibrating-sliding motion of the caisson under various types of breaking wave impact forces, i.e., single peak impact force, double peak impact force, and shock-damping oscillation impact force. The effects of various breaking wave impacts and the sliding motion on the dynamic response behaviors of caisson breakwaters are investigated and the calculation of relevant system parameters is discussed. It is shown that the dynamic responses of the caisson are significantly different under different types of breaking wave impact forces even when the amplitudes of impact forces are equal. The amplitude of dynamic response of the caisson is lower under single peak impact excitation than that under double peak impact or shock-damping oscillation impact excitation. Though the displacement of the caisson is large due to sliding, the rotation, the sliding force and the overturning moment of the caisson are significantly reduced.
Vibrating, sliding and uplift rocking are three elementary motion types of caisson breakwaters. The dynamic model and the numerical simulation method of vibrating-sliding-uplift rocking coupled motion of caisson breakwaters are developed. The histories of displacement, rotation, sliding force and overturning moment of a caisson breakwater under the excitation of breaking wave impact are calculated for the motion models of vibrating, vibrating-sliding, vibrating-uplift rocking and vibrating-sliding-uplift rocking. The effects of various motion models on the stability of caisson breakwaters are investigated. The feasibility of the dynamic design idea that the sliding motion and the uplift rocking motion of caisson breakwaters are allowed under the excitation of breaking wave impact is discussed.
