Abstract
Seaports’ breakwaters serve as important infrastructures capable of sheltering ships, facilities, and harbour personnel from severe wave climate. Given their exposure to ocean waves and port authorities’ increasing awareness towards sustainability, it is important to develop and assess wave energy conversion technologies suitable of being integrated into seaport breakwaters. To fulfil this goal whilst ensuring adequate sheltering conditions, this paper describes the performance and stability analysis of the armour layer and toe berm of a 1/50 geometric scale model of the north breakwater extension project, intended for the Port of Leixões, with an integrated hybrid wave energy converter. This novel hybrid concept combines an oscillating water column and an overtopping device. The breakwater was also studied without the hybrid wave energy device as to enable a thorough comparison between both solutions regarding structural stability, safety, and overtopping performance. The results point towards a considerable reduction in the overtopping volumes through the integration of the hybrid technology by an average value of 50%, while the stability analysis suggests that the toe berm of the breakwater is not significantly affected by the hybrid device, leading to acceptable safety levels. Even so, some block displacements were observed, and the attained stability numbers were slightly above the recommended thresholds from the literature. It is also shown that traditional damage assessment parameters should be applied with care when non-conventional structures are analysed, such as rubble-mound breakwaters with integrated wave energy converters.
Highlights
Seaports are important maritime infrastructures responsible for the development of regional economies and the global transport trade
One of the most promising options being considered by port authorities relies upon the integration of wave energy converters (WECs) into breakwaters [11,12,13], which represent the main port structures responsible for sheltering the inner areas of seaports and berthing ships from overtopping and severe wave climate [14,15]
Structure’s crest levels are a critical factor that should be carefully considered upon Breakwaters’crest crestlevels levelsare are acritical criticalfactor factorthat thatshould shouldbe becarefully carefullyconsidered consideredupon upon crest levels are aa critical thatto should beunder carefully considered upon design
Summary
Seaports are important maritime infrastructures responsible for the development of regional economies and the global transport trade. One of the most promising options being considered by port authorities relies upon the integration of wave energy converters (WECs) into breakwaters [11,12,13], which represent the main port structures responsible for sheltering the inner areas of seaports and berthing ships from overtopping and severe wave climate [14,15]. This approach presents an opportunity to supply seaports with clean and environmentally sustainable energy by harnessing a directly available resource, given ports’ exposure to ocean waves, with a high global potential [16,17].
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