• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.20 no.5 s.72
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• pp.70-76
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• 2006

A Probabilistic neural network (PNN) technique for predicting the stability number for the armor blocks of breakwaters is presented. A PNN is prepared using the experimental data of van der Meer and is then compared with the empirical formula and previous artificial neural network (ANN) model. This comparison shows that a PNN can effectively predict the stability numbers in spite of data complexity, incompleteness, and incoherence, and can be an effective tool for the designers of rubble mound breakwaters to support their decision process and to improve design efficiency.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.345-356
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• 2009

Tetrapod has been used as the armor blocks of most rubble mound breakwaters constructed in Korea. The Hudson formula has been widely used in the design of breakwater armor blocks in Korea. In the present study, we calculate the load and resistance partial safety factors of the Hudson formula for Tetrapod armors. The partial safety factors were calculated for the typical breakwater cross-sections of 12 trade harbors and 8 coastal harbors in Korea. The mean and standard deviation of them were also calculated. The mean values were compared with the partial safety factors of US Army (2006). The load and resistance factors are slightly smaller and larger, respectively, than the US Army values. However, the overall safety factors obtained by multiplying the load and resistance factors are close to the US Army values. The result of the present study could be used as the basic data to propose authorized partial safety factors in the future.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.172-180
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• 2013

The focus of this study is to provide a method for determining the dimension of a submerged breakwater satisfying the target transmission performance or predicting the transmission coefficient of a given structure. This method was developed based on data analysis of the physical experiment that was carried out by using the submerged breakwater composed of double-layer permeable blocks. Two different armor blocks of Tetrapod and Triangular Pyramid Block were used in the experiment. The parameter $K_Th_b/h$ was introduced in the analysis of the measurement data. By using the linear regression line deduced from the analysis of the experimental data, it was possible to readily predict the wave transmission coefficient irrespective different water depths at the crest of the submerged breakwater, under the condition of significant decrease in transmitted wave height due to the submerged breakwater. This method can be effectively utilized for estimating the necessary number of blocks used for the submerged breakwater as well as comparing the transmission characteristics of the submerged breakwater according to use of different armor blocks.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.415-422
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• 2010

Development of the reliability-based design program in the GUI environment is inadequate for engineers familiar with the deterministic design to deal with the international design criterion based on the probabilistic design. In this study, the design program based on the GUI environment is developed in order to more efficiently input the design factor and more easily carry out the design works. The GUI environment is the GUIDE (Graphic User Interface Development Environment) tool supported by the latest MATALB version 7.1. In order to test the model reliability, the probabilities of failure (POF) on the breakwater armor block (AB) and gravity quay-wall (QW) in the sliding mode are computed using the model in the Level II and Level III. The POF are 55.4~55.7% for breakwater AB and 0.0006~0.0007% for gravity QW. A non-GUI environment program results of the POF are 55.6% for breakwater AB and 0.0018% for gravity QW. In comparison, the POF difference is negligible for breakwater AB because the exact input design parameters are available, whereas the large POF difference, but within the same order, for gravity QW can be explained by the difference of the input design factors because of the poor input data information.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.13-27
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• 2018

To study how stable the rubble mound breakwaters are, one can look to the research of wave induced seepage flow through the pores of the rubble mound. Seepage flow is generally generated by the difference between the water level around the breakwater during a typhoon. The existing stability analysis method of the rubble mound is the static analysis which simply considers the force equilibrium taking into account the horizontal force acting on the concrete block induced by a wave (calculated by Goda equation) and the vertical force induced by the weight inclusive of the concrete block, quarry run, filter, and armor layer above the slipping plane. However, this static method does not consider the wave-induced seepage flow in the rubble mound. Such seepage may decrease the stability of the rubble mound. The stability of a rubble mound breakwater under the action of seepage was studied based on the results of CFD software (OpenFOAM) and Limit Equilibrium Method (GeoStudio). The numerical analysis result showed that the seepage flow decreased the stability of the rubble mound breakwaters. The results of the numerical analyses also revealed the stability of the rubble mound was varied with time. Especially, the most critical state happened at the condition of overtopping the concrete block, acting strong uplift pressure raising along side and underneath the concrete block, and generating high pore pressure inside rubble mound due to seepage flow. Therefore, it may be necessary to conduct a dynamic analysis considering the effect of wave-induce seepage flow together with the static analysis.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.109-117
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• 2011

It was calculated using empirical formulas for the weight of Tetrapod, which was a representative armor unit in the rubble mound breakwater in Korea. As the formulas were evaluated from a curve-fitting with the result of hydraulic test, the uncertainty of experimental error was included. Therefore, the neural network and M5' model tree were used to minimize the uncertainty and predicted the stability number of armor block. The index of agreement between the predicted and measured stability number was calculated to assess the degree of uncertainty for each model. While the neural network with the highest index of agreement have an excellent prediction capability, a significant disadvantage exists that general designers can not easily handle the method. However, although M5' model tree has a lower prediction capability than the neural network, the model tree is easily used by the designers because it has a good prediction capability compared with the existing empirical formula and can be used to propose the formulas like an empirical formula.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.1B
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• pp.59-69
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• 2012

Probabilistic design is required to effectively consider the coastal environment of great uncertainty. However, designers who are familiar with the deterministic design method prefer a method which is similar to the existing method but is based on the probabilistic concept. Therefore, the partial safety factor method has been adopted as a new design method over the world. In Korea, Tetrapod is widely used for armoring rubble mound breakwaters. Even though the partial safety factor method developed in the United States and Europe covers Tetrapods, the limited wave and structure conditions in its development make the engineers hesitate about its use in practical breakwater design. In this study, partial safety factors for Tetrapod armor blocks have been developed by analyzing 116 breakwater cross-sections and wave conditions in 16 trade harbors and 15 coastal harbors with the FORM and optimal code calibration approach. Especially, partial safety factors have been proposed depending on the shape parameter of the Weibull extreme wave height distribution. For other types of extreme distributions, it is possible to apply the proposed partial safety factors using the relationship between skewness coefficient and shape parameter. Finally, the proposed partial safety factors have been applied to existing structures to show that they better satisfy the target reliability of the structures than previous partial safety factors.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.295-305
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• 2010

Although the rubble mound breakwaters in Korea have been damaged by typhoons almost every year, quantification of erosion of armor block have seldomly been made. In this paper, the damage of armor units is standardized by the relative damage. In the case where the number of damaged units is reported, it is divided by the total number of units to calculate the relative damage. In the case where the rehabilitation cost is reported, the relative damage is calculated by using its relationship with the present value of the past rehabilitation cost. The relative damage is shown to have strong correlations with the typhoon parameters such as nearest central air pressure and maximum wind speed at each site. On the other hand, the existing numerical methods for calculating the cumulative damage are compared with hydraulic model tests. The method of Melby and Kobayashi (1998) is shown to give a reasonable result, and it is used to calculate the relative damage, which is compared with the measured damage. A good agreement is shown for the East Breakwater of Yeosu Harbor, while poor agreement is shown for other breakwaters. The poor agreement may be because waves of larger height than the design height occurred due to strong typhoons associated with climate change so that the relative damage increased during the last several decades.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.124-131
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• 2016

In this study, a physical experiment was performed to investigate the change in the stability coefficient, defined by Hudson equation, for the tetrapod of different specific densities. The experiment was carried out once (with no repetition) for a rubble mound breakwater with 1:1.5 slope. In this experiment, the stability coefficient for the high-density tetrapod was greater than that for the normal-density tetrapod. This indicates variability of the stability coefficient according to change in the density of tetrapod. Further experiments and detailed analysis are required to investigate the effect of the density on the stability coefficient of tetrapod.