Research and Development of New Breakwater Design Methods and Tools

随着预期的与气候有关的沿海环境变化和世界海岸线沿着人口密度的增加，沿海保护结构的设计从未像现在这样重要。防波堤，通常是由碎石土丘或混凝土单元建造的，通常是抵御海岸线侵蚀和风暴引发的洪水的第一道和最后一道防线。虽然防波堤对保护我们的海岸线至关重要，但对它们施加的力还没有很好的了解。因此，用于设计几乎所有其他土木工程结构的力平衡方法不适用于防波堤的当前设计方法。相反，它们在很大程度上是以50年前相同的方式设计的，通过应用来自实验室测试的有限数据集和从过去防波堤故障中吸取的定性经验教训。拟议的研究项目将试图解决这个迫切需要新的和可靠的设计工具之间的学术-工业合作项目渥太华和贝尔德W.F. & Associates.该项目的第一阶段将包括在加拿大国家研究理事会进行的一项广泛的实验方案，以调查通过防波堤防护层的水流和施加在单个防护装置上的水动力。研究结果将用于开发新的数学关系描述的水力稳定性的装甲层，并进一步研究一个新提出的数值模型模拟波装甲层相互作用的有效性。在实验计划中发现的控制装甲层稳定性的物理过程将被纳入数值模型，以改进其所依据的物理过程。新的设计公式和先进的数值模型将被Baird W.F. & Associates在国际舞台上获得基于可靠性的海岸防护结构设计的竞争优势。在未来50年内，加拿大和国外数百公里（可能数千公里）的海岸防护结构可能需要升级，利用这些新设计方法的机会将继续以越来越快的速度出现。

With the anticipated climate-related changes to coastal environments and increasing population densities along the worlds' shorelines, the design of coastal protection structures has never been more important. Breakwaters, typically constructed as rubble mounds of rock or concrete units, often serve as the first and last line of defense against shoreline erosion and storm-induced flooding. Although breakwaters are critical to protecting our shorelines, the forces exerted on them are not well understood. Consequently, the force balance approach used to design virtually all other civil engineering structures is not applied in current design methods for breakwaters. Instead, they are largely designed in the same manner as they were 50 years ago, through the application of limited data sets derived from laboratory tests and qualitative lessons learned from past breakwater failures. The proposed research project will attempt to address this acute need for new and reliable design tools in an academic-industry collaborative project between the University of Ottawa and Baird W.F. & Associates. The first stage of the project will consist of an extensive experimental program performed at the National Research Council of Canada to investigate the flow through breakwater armour layers and the hydrodynamic forces exerted on individual armour units. The results will be used to develop new mathematical relationships describing the hydraulic stability of armour layers, and to further investigate the validity of a newly proposed numerical model for simulating wave-armour layer interactions. Physical-based processes governing armour layer stability, uncovered during the experimental program, will be incorporated into the numerical model to improve the physics on which it is based. The new design formulae and cutting-edge numerical model will be used by Baird W.F. & Associates to gain a competitive edge on the international stage for the reliability-based design of coastal protection structures. With hundreds (potentially thousands) of kilometers of coastal protection structures in Canada and abroad likely requiring upgrades over the next 50 years, opportunities to exploit these new design methods will continue to emerge at an increasing rate.