Aeration Essay

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2.0 Aeration in Wave Loading

Aeration appears to play an important role within the impact process when the wave loading is applied on the structure. Aeration is defined as the process by which air is circulated through, mixed with or dissolved in a liquid or substance. In this case, aeration refers to the mixture of sea water with air bubbles. The existence of the air content within the water has an effect on the temporal variations of pressure caused by waves breaking on structures (Biackmore & Hewson, 1984; Griffiths, 1994).

2.1 Causes of Aeration

Aeration in ocean is mainly due to production of bubble. Bubble can be produced via the following processes:
• Biological production - This occurs where there are large aggregations of phytoplankton such as in coastal regions.
• Entrapment of air by capillary waves - These waves have a very short wavelength and are produced by wind and surface tension at the air-sea boundary.
• White capping - This occurs when air is entrapped during the process of deep water spilling breaking of ocean surface waves (Le Blond and Mysak, 1978).
Wave breaking - This is caused by the steepening of gravity waves beyond a critical limit
(Galvin 1968) as a result the wave overturns or breaks resulting in the entrapment of air which produces an abundance of bubbles.

Wave breaking is by far the most significant of the processes producing bubbles at a coastal structure. When a wave breaks in sea water a large number of bubbles are produced and these bubbles generally persist for many wave periods. The bubbles produced also do not tend to coalesce and hence remain small, rising slowly through the water (Scott, 1975). There is also a tendency for the bubbles to remain at the surface for some duration...

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...upon wave impact pressures it is not essential that the exact quantity and size of the bubbles are known, however the volume fraction of air in the water is considered important (henceforth referred to as 'void fraction').

The void fraction can be found by measuring the resistance of a volume of the fluid between two probes, as the resistance between the two probes increases as the air content increases. In order to adequately measure the movement of air pockets and air bubbles a vertical array of co-located pressure and aeration transducers was required. To measure wave impact void fractions in the field the aeration transducers must withstand storm conditions, operate over a range of temperature and salinity variations, and be appropriately attached to the coastal structure. Hence the development of field wave impact aeration gauges was a substantial problem.

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