The wave transformation over slope topography is widely studied, but most of studies are for common coastal slopes. This paper presents an experimental study of 2-D regular and irregular wave transformations on a simplified coral reef with a steep slope of 1:5 and a horizontal reef flat, focusing on the characteristics of the waves that break on the reef flat. The analyzed results show that the estimates of the wave breaking made by using the well-known previous formulae do not agree completely with the experimental results. When the waves break on a reef flat, the relative breaking wave height (H/d)_b is related to the incident deep-water wave steepness and the relative water depth d_b/L₀. Hence, a new criterion for breaking waves on a reef flat is proposed. Furthermore, in view of the fact that the local Ursell number is commonly used to parameterize the wave nonlinearity, the relationships among the skewness, the asymmetry, and the local Ursell number are also presented. Experimental data confirm that when the Ursell number is greater than 30, the absolute values of the skewness and the asymmetry on a reef flat are greater than those on a steep slope.

中文翻译：

---

简化珊瑚礁波传播特性的实验研究

边坡地形上的波变换已被广泛研究，但大多数研究是针对常见的沿海边坡。本文介绍了在具有1：5陡坡和水平礁滩的简化珊瑚礁上进行二维规则和不规则波浪转换的实验研究，重点是在礁滩上破裂的波浪的特征。分析结果表明，使用众所周知的先前公式进行的波浪破碎估计与实验结果并不完全一致。当波浪在礁滩上破裂时，相对破裂波高（H / d）_b与入射深水波陡度和相对水深d _b / L _0有关。。因此，提出了一种在礁滩上打破波浪的新准则。此外，鉴于通常使用局部Ursell数来参数化波浪非线性，还介绍了偏度，不对称性和局部Ursell数之间的关系。实验数据证实，当Ursell数大于30时，礁滩上偏斜度和不对称度的绝对值大于陡坡上的偏度和不对称度的绝对值。