Feasibility of Kinetic Umbrellas as Deployable Flood Barriers during Landfalling Hurricanes

Shengzhe Wang,Luc Deike,Maria Garlock,Branko Glisic

doi:10.1061/(asce)st.1943-541x.0003295

Abstract

Feasibility of Kinetic Umbrellas as Deployable Flood Barriers during Landfalling Hurricanes

Highlights

In an era of urban renewal and revitalization, the design of structures for coastal resilience must adapt to the shifting cultural climate of metropolitan waterfronts
We present to the structural engineering community a methodology to determine loads associated with hurricane surge and waves on structures of any complexity
This paper explored the hydrodynamic response of deployable four-sided hyperbolic paraboloid shells via scale-model testing and numerical modeling

Summary

Introduction

In an era of urban renewal and revitalization, the design of structures for coastal resilience must adapt to the shifting cultural climate of metropolitan waterfronts. To ascertain the desired forcing conditions for structural analysis, a twodimensional (2D) SPH simulation of the domain [Fig. 10(a)] was implemented This enabled the force history on an arbitrary obstacle at the proposed umbrella location to be captured over a total storm duration of 5,000 s (equivalent to approximately 660 waves propagating at the mean period Tm ≈ 0.9Tp), with the inlet velocity [Fig. 10(c)] defined as follows:. To ascertain its overall structural feasibility against surge and wave attack generated by Hurricane Sandy, all critical hydrodynamic demands pertaining to the umbrella shell and supporting column were compared with those of its hydrostatic counterpart at a given level of static inundation. As an example, increasing the thickness to 150 mm and adopting two layers of 16-mm GFRP bars increased flexural capacity 173%, from 41 to 112 kNm=m

Summary and Conclusions

Findings

Data Availability Statement