Assessment of experimental tests on SFT small scale specimen

Abstract

Submerged floating tunnel (SFT) is a new smart transportation infrastructure and a very promising technical solution for waterway crossings, specially for long, large and deep water areas. The SFT is a tubular structure submerged in the water at a fixed depth, stabilized by appropriate anchoring systems. It exploits the load carrying capability of water due to the Archimedes buoyancy. SFT features several advantages as respect to conventional crossing infrastructures from the structural and environmental impact points of view. In spite of this, no SFT has been constructed yet in the world. Several studies have been carried out on the behavior of SFTs under either environmental actions, such as currents, waves and earthquakes, or traffic. They are mainly theoretical and numerical ones, although several interesting tests on small scale models of submerged floating tunnel are reported in literature. The focus of this paper is to provide an assessment of physical tests performed up to now for investigating the hydrodynamic behavior of SFTs. The main peculiarities of test setups, equipments and procedures applied are pointed out and main outcomes are discussed.