Flexible Seawalls: Modified Bulkhead Approach

Abstract

AbstractSeawalls played an important role in protecting harbors and multiple beach properties along the country’s East and West Coasts, coast line of the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes. Engineers successfully used different types of seawalls, ranging from simple gravity walls to flexible sheet pile walls. Until recently industry interchangeably used the term bulkhead or seawall. The majority of bulkheads can be built as simple flexible sheet pile soil retaining structures, whereas seawalls have to be designed for an additional set of loads that includes large hydrodynamic forces. The difference between two structures becomes apparent in toll seawalls designed for large magnitude wave-generated pressures produced by storm or seismic events. The “Great Storm” that pounded the West Coast in January 1988, was one such events. Significant wave height (Hs) along the beach during that event was recorded to be in excess of 16 ft. Waves of such magnitude may carry high energies that can be destructive to the ...