• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.423-433
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• 2019

In order to predict the seabed topography change due to the construction of offshore wind power structures in the west-southern sea of Korea, field observations for tides, tidal currents, suspended sediment concentrations and seabed sediments were carried out at the same time. These data could be used for numerical simulation. In numerical experiments, the empirical constants for the suspended sediment flux were determined by the trial and error method. When a concentration distribution factor was 0.1 and a proportional constant was 0.05 in the suspended sediment equilibrium concentration formulae, the calculated suspended sediment concentrations were reasonably similar with the observed ones. Also, it was appropriate for the open boundary conditions of the suspended sediment when the south-east boundary corner was 11.0 times, the south-west was 0.5 times, the westnorth 1.0 times, the north-west was 1.0 times and the north-east was 1.0 times, respectively, using the time series of the observed suspended sediment concentrations. In this case, the depth change was smooth and not intermittent around the open boundaries. From these calibrations, the annual water depth change before and after construction of the offshore wind power structures was shown under 1 cm. The reason was that the used numerical model for the large scale grid could not reproduce a local scour phenomenon and they showed almost no significant velocity change over ± 2 cm/s because the jacket structures with small size diameter, about 1 m, were a water-permeable. Therefore, it was natural that there was a slight change on seabed topography in the study area.