A study has been conducted to investigate the stability and local scour of a fine sandy bed in the vicinity of a caisson-type breakwater. Experiments were performed to record the wave deformation, pore pressure and local scour in the vicinity of a caisson-type breakwater model over a fine sandy seabed. The experimental records have been compared with the numerical reuslts of a coupled BEM-FEM model and a poroelastic FEM model which were developed by the authors. Comparisons have also been made with the results of 1-D FDM model for the wave-induced response in a porous bed to examine the importance of using 2-D flow models around a structure. A link has been sought among the wave kinematics, seabed stresses and local scour around the breakwater. It has been found that the depth of tensile stress within the scour zone has a comparable magnitude to the depth of scour. Numerical analysis has been conducted to demonstrate the significance of adopting fully nonlinear potential wave model in the wave field. The influence of rubble base size on the wave field has been investigated as well.
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