Design, analyse, draw and plan the construction of breakwaters — rock rubble mounds, mounds armoured with concrete cubes, tetrapods or single-layer units, crown-wall and berm breakwaters, entrance training walls, vertical and composite caissons, submerged reefs, piled screens and floating pontoons. Choose the site on the map by coordinates, fetch hindcast waves, model sea levels and bathymetry for that point, and follow the design from water levels and wave transformation through armour, underlayers, toe and crest to overtopping, transmission, caisson pressures, scour and bearing. The reference project is the Gold Coast Seaway entrance at The Spit, Queensland.
Scope & limitations
Preliminary design for feasibility and education. Hindcast and model data are indicative; the Gold Coast Seaway values are a public-domain reference study, not the original design. Have breakwater designs checked by a qualified coastal engineer; physical model tests are normal practice for major structures.
What the breakwater design studio does
Ten breakwater types share one engine: conventional rock rubble mounds, rubble mounds armoured with concrete cubes, tetrapods or single-layer interlocking units, rubble mounds with a concrete crown wall, reshaping berm breakwaters, twin entrance training walls of the Gold Coast Seaway type, vertical and high-mound composite caissons, submerged reefs, piled curtain-wall screens and floating pontoon breakwaters.
Pick the site on a map or search a place; the studio then fetches a long wave hindcast (ERA5-Ocean reanalysis through the Open-Meteo Marine API where it is available), model sea levels and GEBCO bathymetry along the alignment, fits a Gumbel distribution to the annual maxima and proposes the design wave, storm period, approach direction, tidal planes and toe depth — each of which you can accept or overwrite.
Waves are refracted and shoaled to the toe with Goda's surf-zone model; armour is sized by Hudson and by Van der Meer or Van Gent (rock) and Van der Meer (units), with underlayers, filter rules, toe stability, crest width, run-up and mean overtopping to EurOtop 2018, transmission, reflection, crown-wall forces, Goda–Takahashi caisson pressures, scour and bearing.
Every step is written out with its formula, substituted values and reference and can be exported as A4 calculation sheets in PDF; the A3 drawing set has a numbered typical section, plan, roundhead and details, and the 3D view animates the design wave against the structure with transmission behind it and overtopping spray.