Inflatable breakwaters are flexible cylindrical structures attached to a rigid base. These breakwaters are generally cylindrical tubes, made of rubberized material, and inflated by air and/or water. Although these breakwaters are permanently inflated, they have the advantage of that can be deflated and lie flat when are not needed, and then inflated in a short period when required. They are relatively easy to install, do not corrode, require little maintenance, and have the capability to withstand extreme temperatures. Due to elasticity of the structure and continuous variation of its shape during operation, an inflatable breakwater structural and hydraulic analysis is more complicated than a rigid breakwater. Large deformation of the membrane due to the internal and external loads makes the governing equations of such problem to be non-linear and complex. In the present study the behavior of an inflatable breakwater under the loading by marine waves was simulated based on 2D numerical modeling. For this purpose, the deformed equilibrium geometry of the breakwater was calculated by solving the prevailing equations through the linear dynamic response of the system. The central difference method was employed to solve the governing equations of the linear dynamic response of the system of finite elements. According to the results of former studies, for 2D modeling of the aforementioned problem, the length of the tube is assumed infinity. Therefore the effects of lateral supports and boundary conditions are negligible. This study deals with numerical analysis of the inflatable breakwaters for solving the flow based problem associated with static and dynamic structural analysis. For this purpose, the two dimensional fluid-structure interactions were analyzed numerically. It was shown that the equilibrium shape of the breakwater is a function of rubber thickness t , elasticity modulus of the material E , internal pressure P , the dam foot width L and external loads . All the influential parameters of both flow and structure including internal pressure, water depth, wave height, wave period and etc. were attained based on the dimensional analysis. Accordingly, the results describing height and cross-sectional profile of the breakwaters loaded by marine waves were obtained and compared with those of former investigations. Keywords : Inflatable breakwater, Fluid-structure interaction, Central difference method, Numerical modeling, Fluid-structure interaction.
