Open courseware on water
Breakwaters and Closure Dams
Author(s): H.J. Verhagen
Offered by: Delft University of Technology
Type: Slides
Keywords: hydraulic engineering, coastal engineering, civil engineering 
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Description of open courseware
Design and construction of breakwaters and closure dams in estuaries and rivers. Functional requirements, determination of boundary conditions, spatial and constructional design and construction aspects of breakwaters and dams consisting of rock, sand and caissons. Overview and history of breakwater and closure dam construction. The general design principles of a breakwater and a closure dam. Determination of boundary conditions for dams and breakwaters, with special attention to the design frequency. Methods to determine the design wave height from wave statistics. Overview of other boundary conditions (geotechnical and hydraulic). Materials, quarries and rock properties. Various properties of the different types of dams and breakwaters, like stability of riprap in current and wave conditions, design of armour layer, natural rock and concrete elements. The use of caissons for breakwaters and closure dams. Computation of element size using classical formulae, partial safety coefficients and probabilistic methods. Plan and cross section of breakwaters. Practical examples of breakwaters and closure dams. Execution (marine or land based equipment) of the works. Failure mechanisms and (cost) optimisation. One-week exercise in which a group of two or three students has to design a breakwater and a closure dam.
The course consists of the following 17 lectures:
1. Introduction
2. Positioning of the Subject
3. The Design Process
4. Considerations at System Level
5. Use of Theory
6. Data Collection
7. Stability of Randomly Placed Rock Mounds
8. Dynamic Stability
9. Monolithic Breakwaters
10. Wave Structure Interaction
11. Design Practice of Breakwater Cross Sections
12. Design Practice for Closure Dams
13. Construction Methods for Granular Material
14. Construction Methods for Monolithic Structures
15. Failure Modes and Optimization
16. Flow Development in Closure Gaps
17. Review
More information (external link to the study material)
Sources of text, links and images: Open courseware website of TU Delft
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