Evaluation of Hydrodynamic Characteristics of Quarter Circular Breakwater by RBF Network and Regression Models

Breakwaters are massive structures constructed to provide the required tranquility within the ports and also used for safeguarding the beaches from eroding due to severe action of waves especially during inclement weather. In the recent years, innovative structures like Semi-Circular Breakwater (SCB) and Quarter Circular Breakwater (QCB) are being evolved to fulfill the ever increasing demand from coastal sector. QCB is a modified SCB, which is similar to caisson consists of a quarter circular surface facing incident waves with horizontal bottom and a rear vertical wall and are generally placed on a rubble mound foundation. This paper presents a study on evaluation of hydrodynamic characteristics of QCB by adopting Radial Basis Function (RBF) Network and Regression models with illustrative example. For which,  the experiment is conducted at National Institute of Technology, Surathkal and the experimental data collected is analyzed by plotting the non-dimensional graphs of reflection coefficient, reflected and incident wave heights for various values of wave steepness.  The applicability of RBF and Auto-Regression (REG) models is evaluated by Goodness-of-Fit (viz., Kolmogorov-Smirnov) test and model performance analysis through model performance indicators viz., correlation coefficient, mean absolute error and model efficiency. The outcome of the study indicates that the REG model is better suited for evaluation of hydrodynamic characteristics of QCB. Keywords: Correlation Coefficient, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Mean Absolute Error, Model Efficiency, Quarter Circular Breakwater, Radial Basis Function, Regression