Wave run-up on surface-piercing columns is an important phenomenon in offshore engineering. Previous studies have mainly focused on a single column and circular column arrays. This study is concerned with the wave run-up ratio and the wave force on a fixed array of four rounded square columns. A series of regular wave tests were conducted, and the effects of wave periods and steepness were investigated. The nonlinearity of the wave run-up under incident waves with a small period is more sensitive to wave steepness. Utilizing empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and fast Fourier transform (FFT) methods, the measured signals were separated into three components representing characteristics of the incident wave component (IMF1), near-field interference (IMF2), and far-field low frequency reflected wave (IMF3), respectively. The proposed methods are helpful for studying the mechanism of near-field interference, and the experimental data are essential benchmarks for validating further numerical simulations of wave run-ups on rounded square columns.
