A case study of the new breakwater of the Port of Genova: Comparing the PIANC design method with the new EUROCODE

Breakwaters used to protect harbours and coastal areas worldwide are one of the most common coastal structures. The complexity of the physical processes associated with the design has led to the development of many empirical formulas while a standardized method for the selection of breakwaters’ design parameters in the EU does not yet exist. The...

Applicability of the goda–takahashi wave load formula for vertical slender hydraulic structures

Vertical slender hydraulic structures such as sluices, navigation locks, or storm-surge barriers are often dynamically loaded by waves. For a safe and economic design, an accurate description of the wave loads is needed. A widely used formula for this purpose is the Goda–Takahashi wave load formula (GT). It was derived for the assessment of...

Numerical Evaluation of Design Rules for Non-Breaking Wave Loads on Vertical Walls

This paper describes a numerical evaluation of design rules for the determination of wave loads of non-breaking waves on vertical structures. Design guidelines were proposed by Sainflou (1928) and Goda (1974). These guidelines use geometric parameters of the structure, an incident wave height and a wave period. In practice (cf. CERC, 1984), a...

Wave loads on vertical walls: Validation of design methods for non-breaking waves of bimodal spectra

During the design process of the new sea lock in IJmuiden the design wave conditions were described by a bimodal wave spectrum. With a spectral calculation method it was observed that a small low frequency component leaded to a large influence in the force spectrum. This observation served as the starting point for this thesis, where different...

Design Caisson breakwater: An evaluation of the formula of Goda

The growing need for breakwaters in deep water due to the increasing draught of large vessels draws the attention to caisson breakwaters. These monolithic structures are more economical compared to rubble mound breakwaters. Especially in deep water lower construction and maintenance costs and considerable savings in construction time can be...

Wave forces on vertical breakwaters: Reliability of design formula

Through the increasing draught of large vessels the need for breakwaters at greater depths becomes more and more important. In this respect vertical breakwaters may be the best alternative because of the considerable savings in construction time as well as the lower construction and maintenance costs. Therefore a lot of research is performed...