Investigating the Risk of Galveston's Proposed Floating Sector Gates Failing Under Reverse Loading Conditions

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Structural Performance of a 10MW Turbine in Offshore Hurricane Wind Conditions: A Case Study for the Gulf of Mexico

Offshore wind farms are being deployed in ever more challenging conditions. Relatively unexplored are wind farms deployed in hurricane-prone regions. That is exactly the challenge that Mexican government faces as they want to expand their renewable energy resources by developing offshore wind in the Gulf of Mexico. The increased variability in...

Surges of the 21st Century: Addressing flood risk, public- and ecological value through urban regeneration, to reduce socio-economic pressure and flood risk in coastal areas

In the last decennia, the world has seen a staggering increase in urbanization in coastal areas. Socio-economic pressure in coastal areas is increasing, while extreme weather events become more common. This thesis focuses on the development of coastal areas in order to combat the rising threats of flood risk and socio-economic pressure. Through...

Tropical Cyclone Statistical Wind Estimation: In Regions with Rare Cyclone Occurrence

Tropical Cyclones (TCs) are in many regions responsible for severe damages and a great number of casualties, resulting from the severe wind speeds, rainfall, wave heights and storm surges. The recent hurricanes Harvey and Irma are examples of the great devastation that can be caused by a single event, and of the insufficient level of...

Modeling the effects of hard structures on dune erosion and overwash

Many of the most densely populated areas are located near the coast. Climate change and population growth put more and more pressure on these coastal areas. As free space is becoming sparse, coastal disaster risk reduction plans need to be spatially efficient. In this thesis the sandy coast with hard structures, such as buildings or dune...

Modelling sediment transport and morphology during overwash and breaching events

Currently, morphodynamic models as XBeach show substantial overestimations of the erosion rates during breaching and overwash events at barrier islands. The presently used limitations on the Shields parameter and the sediment concentration do hinder erosion, but have undesirable side effects, e.g. the breaching process is suppressed. By...

The Bolivar Roads Surge Barrier: A conceptual design for the environmental section

In response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Ike to the Galveston Bay Area, Texas, United States in September 2008, several proposals emerged to protect the region against future storm surges. One of them is a coastal spine called the ’Ike Dike’. A challenge for this 160 km [100 mi] long flood protection is to cross Bolivar Roads, a 2.8 km...

Cross-shore morphological response on Chaland Headland due to Hurricanes Gustav and Ike