• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.287-292
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• 2021

Load and resistance factor design is an efficient design approach that provides a system of consistent design solutions. This study aims to determine the load and resistance factors needed for the design of breakwater foundations within a probabilistic framework. In the study, four typical types of Korean breakwaters, namely, rubble mound breakwaters, vertical composite caisson breakwaters, perforated caisson breakwaters, and horizontal composite breakwaters, are investigated. The bearing capacity of breakwater foundations under wave loading conditions is thoroughly examined. Two levels of the target reliability index (RI) of 2.5 and 3.0 are selected to implement the load and resistance factors calibration using Monte Carlo simulations with 100,000 cycles. The normalized resistance factors are found to be lower for the higher target RI as expected. Their ranges are from 0.668 to 0.687 for the target RI of 2.5 and from 0.576 to 0.634 for the target RI of 3.0.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.137-146
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• 2006

This is the second of a two-part paper which describes comparison of reliability design methods by application to Donghae Harbor Breakwaters. In this paper, Part 2, we deal with sliding of caissons. The failure modes of a vertical breakwater, which consists of a caisson mounted on a rubble mound, include the sliding and overturning of the caisson and the failure of the rubble mound or subsoil, among which most frequently occurs the sliding of the caisson. The traditional deterministic design method for sliding failure of a caisson uses the concept of a safety factor that the resistance should be greater than the load by a certain factor (e.g. 1.2). However, the safety of a structure cannot be quantitatively evaluated by the concept of a safety factor. On the other hand, the reliability design method, for which active research is being performed recently, enables one to quantitatively evaluate the safety of a structure by calculating the probability of failure of the structure. The reliability design method is classified into three categories depending on the level of probabilistic concepts being employed, i.e., Level 1, 2, and 3. In this study, we apply the reliability design methods to the sliding of the caisson of the breakwaters of Donghae Harbor, which was constructed by traditional deterministic design methods to be damaged in 1987. Analyses are made for the breakwaters before the damage and after reinforcement. The probability of failure before the damage is much higher than the allowable value, indicating that the breakwater was under-designed. The probability of failure after reinforcement, however, is close to the allowable value, indicating that the breakwater is no longer in danger. On the other hand, the results of the different reliability design methods are in fairly good agreement, confirming that there is not much difference among different methods.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.23-32
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• 2023

Probabilistic and deterministic analyses are implemented for the armor units of rubble foundation mound of composite breakwaters which is needed to protect the upright section against the scour of foundation mounds. By a little modification and incorporation of the previous empirical formulas that has commonly been applied to design the armor units of foundation mound, a new type formula of stability number has been suggested which is capable of taking into account slopes of foundation mounds, damage ratios of armor units, and incident wave numbers. The new proposed formula becomes mathematically identical with the previous empirical formula under the same conditions used in the developing process. Deterministic design have first been carried out to evaluate the minimum weights of armor units for several conditions associated with a typical section of composite breakwater. When the slopes of foundation mound become steepening and the incident wave numbers are increasing, the bigger armor units more than those from the previous empirical formula should be required. The opposite trends however are shown if the damage ratios is much more allowed. Meanwhile, the reliability analysis, which is one of probabilistic models, has been performed in order to quantitatively verify how the armor unit resulted from the deterministic design is stable. It has been confirmed that 1.2% of annual encounter probability of failure has been evaluated under the condition of 1% damage ratio of armor units for the design wave of 50 years return period. By additionally calculating the influence factors of the related random variables on the failure probability due to those uncertainties, it has been found that Hudson's stability coefficient, significant wave height, and water depth above foundation mound have sequentially been given the impacts on failure regardless of the incident wave angles. Finally, sensitivity analysis has been interpreted with respect to the variations of random variables which are implicitly involved in the formula of stability number for armor units of foundation mound. Then, the probability of failure have been rapidly decreased as the water depth above foundation mound are deepening. However, it has been shown that the probability of failure have been increased according as the berm width of foundation mound are widening and wave periods become shortening.

• 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.28 no.5
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• pp.277-283
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• 2016

Tetrapod is one of the most widely used concrete armor units for rubble mound breakwaters. The calculation of the stability number of Tetrapods is necessary to determine the optimal weight of Tetrapods. Many empirical formulas have been developed to calculate the stability number of Tetrapods, from the Hudson formula in 1950s to the recent one developed by Suh and Kang. They were developed by using the regression analysis to determine the coefficients of an assumed formula using the experimental data. Recently, software engineering (or machine learning) methods are introduced as a large amount of experimental data becomes available, e.g. artificial neural network (ANN) models for rock armors. However, these methods are seldom used probably because they did not significantly improve the accuracy compared with the empirical formula and/or the engineers are not familiar with them. In this study, we propose an explicit method to calculate the stability number of Tetrapods using the weights and biases of an ANN model. This method can be used by an engineer who has basic knowledge of matrix operation without requiring knowledge of ANN, and it is more accurate than previous empirical formulas.