ابراهيم الصاوي

‫هندسه المواني‬
‫ محمد طارق شمعه‬.‫اشراف د‬
Name – Ebrahem Alsawy Ebrahem

Code – 170001
Subject - Rubble mound breakwater
Introduction
In Mediterranean countries, mound breakwaters are often built with a
concrete parapet resting on the mound layer, and being partially
protected by the armour layer. In engineering practice, this parapet is
known as a crown wall, wave wall, wave screen, etc. Although the
primary function of the crown wall is to reduce wave overtopping, there
are several reasons for topping the breakwater with a crown wall, e.g., i
protection of Ž . breakwater rear slope if the breakwater is overtopped,
ii facilitation of some construc- Ž . tion procedures, and iii reduction of
required volume of quarry material and thus Ž . reduction of construction
costs, etc. There are a few methods for the calculation of wave forces on
crown walls: Iribarren and Nogales 1964 , Jensen 1984 and Gunbak and
Gokce 1984 are some. However, it Ž. Ž. Ž. ¨ ¨ is known that the first
method is pessimistic, yielding conservative design. The second is not
reliable since the influence of wave period is not represented
adequately, the influence of the armour geometry in reducing wave
loading has not been addressed and, therefore, calculated wave forces
deviate from measurements up to "30% Bradbury et Ž al., 1988 .
Moreover, Pedersen and Burcharth 1992 tried to verify Jensen’s
parameteri- . Ž . sation by using experimental measurements from
different authors finding a large scatter in the results. The third method
is difficult to apply for design purposes. In this paper a new semi-
empirical method, based on these previous investigations and on
additional experiments using monochromatic waves, is proposed. First,
the crown wall problem is discussed from a design point of view. Next,
the formulation of the wave pressure on a vertical wall induced by
broken waves is presented. After the introduction of the experimental
results, the new method is extended to irregular waves via the
hypothesis of equivalence introduced by Saville 1962 and Ž . empirically
proven by Bruun and Gunbak 1978 for run-up on rough permeable
slopes. ¨ Ž . Finally, the method is applied to actual breakwaters and the
results are compared to empirical data from Burcharth et al. 1995 and
Jensen 1984 .
Breakwater armour units

As design wave heights get larger, rubble mound breakwaters
require larger armour units to resist the wave forces. These armour
units can be formed of concrete or natural rock. The largest
standard grading for rock armour units given in CIRIA 683 "The
Rock Manual" is 10–15 tonnes. Larger gradings may be available,
but the ultimate size is limited in practice by the natural fracture
properties of locally available rock.
Shaped concrete armour units (such as Dolos, Xbloc, Tetrapod,
etc.) can be provided in up to approximately 40 tonnes (e.g. Jorf
Lasfar, Morocco), before they become vulnerable to damage under
self weight, wave impact and thermal cracking of the complex
shapes during casting/curing. Where the very largest armour units
are required for the most exposed locations in very deep water,
armour units are most often formed of concrete cubes, which have
been used up to ~195 tonnes for the tip of the breakwater at Punta
Langosteira near La Coruña, Spain.
Preliminary design of armour unit size is often undertaken using
the Hudson Equation, Van der Meer and more recently Van Gent
et al.; these methods are all described in CIRIA 683 "The Rock
Manual" and the United States Army Corps of Engineers Coastal
engineering manual (available for free online) and elsewhere. For
detailed design the use of scaled physical hydraulic models
remains the most reliable method for predicting real-life behavior of
these complex structures.
• Rubble
Rubble mound breakwaters use structural voids to dissipate the
wave energy. Rubble mound breakwaters consist of piles of stones
more or less sorted according to their unit weight: smaller stones
for the core and larger stones as an armour layer protecting the
core from wave attack. Rock or concrete armour units on the
outside of the structure absorb most of the energy, while gravels or
sands prevent the wave energy's continuing through the
breakwater core. The slopes of the revetment are typically between
1:1 and 1:2, depending upon the materials used. In shallow water,
revetment breakwaters are usually relatively inexpensive. As water
depth increases, the material requirements—and hence costs—
increase significantly
• Caisson
Caisson breakwaters typically have vertical sides and are usually erected
where it is desirable to berth one or more vessels on the inner face of
the breakwater. They use the mass of the caisson and the fill within it to
resist the overturning forces applied by waves hitting them. They are
relatively expensive to construct in shallow water, but in deeper sites
they can offer a significant saving over revetment breakwaters.
An additional rubble mound is sometimes placed in front of the vertical

structure in order to absorb wave energy and thus reduce wave
reflection and horizontal wave pressure on the vertical wall. Such a
design provides additional protection on the sea side and a quay wall on
the inner side of the breakwater, but it can enhance wave overtopping
• Wave attenuator
Wave attenuators consist of concrete elements placed horizontally
one foot under the free surface, positioned along a line parallel to
the coast. Wave attenuators have four slabs facing the sea, one
vertical slab, and two slabs facing the land; each slab is separated
from the next by a space of 200 millimetres (7.9 in). The row of four
sea-facing and two land-facing slabs reflects offshore wave by the
action of the volume of water located under it which, made to
oscillate under the effect of the incident wave, creates waves in
phase opposition to the incident wave downstream from the slabs
• Environmental effects
The reduced heterogeneity in sea floor landscape introduced by
breakwaters can lead to reduced species abundance and diversity
in the surrounding ecosystems.[9] As a result of the reduced
heterogeneity and decreased depths that breakwaters produce
due to sediment build up, the UV exposure and temperature in
surrounding waters increase, which may disrupt surrounding
ecosystems Three of the four breakwaters forming Portland
Harbour, UK The eight offshore breakwaters at Elmer, UK But as a
kind of environmental friendly breakwater, pile breakwaters
because of occupation of a small area is not harmful to sea wildlife.
• Definition of the problem
1. The crown wall problem In this section the main factors involved in
the design of a crown wall are discussed. Moreover, the physical
background for the derivation of the present method is given. The
procedure for calculating a crown wall usually includes the following
steps: iŽ . The rate of wave overtopping determines the crest level of
the crown wall. ii The Ž . construction procedure and costs governs the
crown wall foundation level. And finally, Ž . iii a stability analysis
determines the width and the other dimensions of the crown wall. If
the upper berm of the armour layer is very low, the crown wall has to
withstand most of the wave actions, including those of wave breaking
at the wall. Traditionally, this type of structure is denoted ‘composite
breakwater’. On the other hand, if the berm is higher than the
maximum wave run-up level, then the design is not dominated by wave
actions and its overall dimensions are essentially dictated by functional
requirements. Among these extreme cases, there are several
alternatives ranging from high
berm and small crown wall to see Hamilton and Hall, 1992 low berm
and large crown Ž .
wall.A very convenient solution is to build the upper berm high enough
so that wave breaking always occurs on the armour layer; i.e., the
crown wall will have to withstand only the pressures induced by broken
waves. From an engineering point of view, the crown wall problem may
be described as follows Fig. 1 : Ž .
to determine crown wall geometrical dimensions crest elevation,
foundation level Ž and width for a given design water level and wave
characteristics as a function of the . height and width of the armour
layer upper berm. These dimensions must satisfy the functional
requirements safely and economically. To solve this problem, it is
necessary to define: 1 the geometry of the armour layer Ž . which
guarantees wave breaking onto the slope, and 2 the pressure
distribution of Ž . broken waves on a vertical wall, including uplift
pressure. Next, the stability of the upright section has to be verified.
2.2. WaÕe breaking on the slope of rubble mound breakwaters
Descriptions of pressure distribution when waves are impinging on
vertical structures may be found in several papers. Nagai 1973 analysed
wave pressure on structures Ž . induced by monochromatic standing
waves, partially standing waves and breaking or broken waves. For non-
breaking waves, the main feature of the time pressure distribution is
the occurrence of a symmetrical double peak around the wave crest.
Fig. 2 shows the time evolution of the wave pressure on a vertical wall,
under different wave steepnesses. For waves with slight steepness
reaching the wall, the pressure–time series induced by the standing
wave show a sinusoidal shape. Increasing the wave steepness and
keeping the wave period constant, the peak pressure at the bottom of
the wall fluctuates with twice the wave frequency, Fig. 2a. As the wave
steepness is further increased, the fluctuation expands up to the water
surface
• Historical Review of Damage Models for
Rubble Mound Breakwaters
Most hydraulic stability formulae were derived for rock armoring rather
than for artificial blocks. According to Allsop et al. [7], rock armored
breakwaters dominate in many areas of theworld, although concrete
armored breakwaters have probably a more detailed database because
of the records from armor unit licensees. The present manuscript is
mainly focused on quarry stones and parallelepiped armor units.
Special shaped concrete units are roughly outlined in Appendix A.
In most hydraulic stability formulae are summarized, with some slight
modifications in order to be consistent with the symbols used herein
and to fit the following general structure (adapted
from Hald NS =H∆Dn50 < f(K, p1, p2, . . . , pn) (1)
Thus, the stability of the armor layer was found to be reached when the
stability number (NS) is lower than a certain function (f). This function
depends on the n parameters (p1, p2, . . . , pn) influencing
stability and an empirical coefficient (K) determined by the parameters
not directly accounted for in the stability equation (see Appendix B for
the rest of symbols).
While hydraulic stability formulae were originally aimed at
characterizing the initiation of movement of the armor layer, damage
progression models were later designed to predict
the evolution of rubble mounds’ geometry by means of a quantitative
damage descriptor. Consequently, damage progression models
represent a much more useful design tool and are indispensable in any
reliable maintenance or conservation program. However, because of
the complexity of the problem, damage progression models were
developed just in the past decades. More research is still needed,
especially considering the adequacy of the different models to
prototype measurements, which is not extensive nowadays. A review
of damage progression models is presented
. Note that some models, mainly based on experimental results, define
damage through the dimensionless erosion area (S) presented in
Broderick and Ahrens [9], while others, mainly built under
theoretical assumptions, define the damage descriptor in a generic way
(D) Before expounding on a historical synthesis on armor layer stability
from the first hydraulic stability models to the latest contributions, the
timeline of Table 3 is presented. It shows a selection
of the most relevant hydraulic stability models and damage progression
models . This scheme permits, not only arranging chronologically the
different proposals in the study of armor layer stability, but also having
an idea of the parameters/properties accounted for and the
innovations introduced by each of them.
• Force distribution for random waves

The extension of the previous method to irregular waves is based on
the following considerations:
1. The reference parameter for the application of the formulae for
calculating thedynamic pressures, see Eqs. 1 , 7 and 15 , is the run-up
on a straight slope. Ž. Ž. Ž .
2. The hypothesis of equivalence introduced by Saville 1962 can be

applied for Ž . computing run-up distribution on a rough, permeable
slope. Given a sea state defined by the significant wave height, Hs, the
zero crossing averaged wave period, Tz, the value of the total forces on
the wall generated by the dynamic and reflecting pressures may be
considered random variables which can give different values for each
individual wave Ž . H,T of the sea state. The hypothesis of equivalence
proposes that the distribution function of a random variable may be
obtained by assigning to each individual irregular wave the same
phenomenon value which would be produced by a periodic train of the
same wave height and period.
Abstract
Abstract Crown walls are primarily built to reduce wave overtopping of

mound breakwaters. Several methods have been proposed to calculate
wave loads on the crown wall, e.g., Iribarren and Nogales Iribarren, R.,
Nogales, C., 1964. Obras Marıtimas. Dossat Ed. , Madrid, 376 pp. , w ´ Ž
. x Jensen Jensen, O.J., 1984. A Monograph on Rubble Mound
Breakwaters. Danish Hydraulic w Institute and Gunbak and Gokce
Gunbak, A.R., Gokce, T., 1984. Wave screen stability of x w ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ rubble-
mound breakwaters. International Symposium of Maritime Structures
in the Mediterranean Sea. Athens, Greece, pp. 2.99–2.112 . In this
paper, a new method based on those previous x results, and on further
experimental work, using monochromatic waves, is presented. The
application of the new method requires waves breaking on the armour
layer; i.e., only broken waves will reach the crown wall. The method is
extended to irregular waves via the hypothesis of equivalence
introduced by Saville

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‫هندسه المواني‬

‫ محمد طارق شمعه‬.‫اشراف د‬

Name – Ebrahem Alsawy Ebrahem

Breakwater armour units

An additional rubble mound is sometimes placed in front of the vertical

• Force distribution for random waves

2. The hypothesis of equivalence introduced by Saville 1962 can be

Abstract Crown walls are primarily built to reduce wave overtopping of

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