In Tunisia, the Blzerte-Zarzouna fishing harbor Is armored with 6.3 m Accropode units on the roundhead. BREAK WATER CHOICES Most maritime breakwaters are rubble mounds protected by concrete blocks. Here are the most commonly used types. GEORGES ViNCENT would have to be the existing commercial harbor, and that it would req cypes of armor to protect the 6.5 m, they soon discarded th rock solurion be; of large rocks at any re le distance. The de signers then sade detailed seucties of the two concrete possibilicie confirming cheir data with seule models and including both in the ternational tender. The low bid © use Acc volume of 25,000 m’. Accroy of arm the world in consery mound breakwaters. Ir of cox small in a gentle slog waves, but these tend to shift along the when subjected to This diffi he end of structure ique wave attack which is subjected 1 induced currents. Such ce rocks placed on sie © heavier of 1:3, 1:5 lirions requ solutign that can reduce the widdh of the harbor © of the armor lay ance. Each rock s placed pendently be e has shown thac art jinted from Civil Engineering, July 1989Armor units can be cast Ina varlety of sizes, weights. ficial blocks must be used to armor rubble breakwaters where the de- sign wave is higher than 5 or 6 m, in many cases whether natural rock is available or not. The new commercial harbor of Damietta in Egypt was constructed with Accro- podes of 2.5 m?, 4 m? and 9 m? be- cause the nearest rock quarry was in the Suez area at least 220 km away. The harbor, excavated inland near the eastern arm of the Nile, is connected to that river for ship- ping. The harbor basins, designed for ships up to 80,000 dws, are also connected to the sea by a naviga- tion channel. This channel is pro- tected against wave attack and sil- tation by two maritime breakwa- ters, One to the west is 1,500 m long; the eastern one is’ 400 m long. The maximum water depth at their roundheads is —9 m on the west and ~5 m on the east. The initial design by an Ameri- can consulting firm provided for protection of the breakwaters by armors formed partly with selected large rocks and partly with grooved cubic blocks. The Franco-Japanese contracting group to which the works had been awarded decided, however, to compare several sys- tems. They chose to use a total of 50,000 m? Accropode blocks of 1.5 and 4 m} for the east breakwater and 2.5, 4 and 9 mm? for the west. Except in Japan, where there are many artificial units competing in the market, there are five main types of units being used world- wide. These are: (1) The ordinary cube; (2) the grooved or modified cube, also called the Antifer block; (3) the Tetrapod, (4) the Dolos; and (5) the Accropode(R). Types 2, 3 and 5 were developed in France, while che Dolos was invented and developed by South Africans. Over the past 10 co 15 years, there have been accidents on ma- jor breakwaters that revealed the fragility of certain blocks. This fragility has been exacerbated in some cases by problems with Do- los blocks at Gioia Toro in Italy and Sines in Portugal, as well as with Tecrapods in Tripoli, Libya and Arzew in Algeria. ‘These accidents made engineers acutely aware of at least three as pects to be considered in the de- sign of rubble mound breakwater armors: © The fragility of certain artificial units. © The need for better definition of the design wave height, notably for breakwaters over considerable depths where the height and the induced forces are not limited by the seabed. © The advisability of adopting the notion of ‘‘no perceptible move- ment” of a block in the armor rather than the notion of x% dam. age for the design wave. ‘Accropode units have been ac- cepted as an effective compromise that meets those considerations. Their shape promotes strength, and they can be used in a single layer of blocks. This makes it pos- sible to “oversize” the armor, using units larger than necessary with- out the cost penalties of equivalent solutions, COST COMPARISONS The unit weights of rocks de- signed to form a breakwater armor are generally calculated by Hud- son’s formula. The application of this formula has now been ex- tended to preliminary sizing of ar- tificial blocks, with modifications that can translate weight into pre- liminary costs. Coefficients have been devised to take items into ac- count: * Nature of the armor in terms of energy absorbed per unit. * Slope of the armor, which deter- mines construction method and plant required. In principle, it is less costly to build a structure on 2 slope close to the natural angle of repose of the materials in water be- cause materials for the greater part of such a breakwater can be tipped from trucks. © Royalties required from use of techniques protected by patents, with related technical assistance. * Cost of manufacturing the block varies with its complexity and frag- iliry; the proportion of cement in the concrete mix increases with complexity * Block placement. All other things being equal, it is easier pick up and place an Accropod unit than an ordinary or modific cubic block of similar size. A fo ther difficulty with the latter their tendency to arrange ther selves into a semi-regular paving The number of blocks to Lb placed also affects cost of place ment. This varies most with the number of layers required. * Capacity of the handling equip- ment must be extended more for placing blocks on shallow slopes than steep ones. Our experience has shown that these correction coefficients can be totalled for use in calculating rela- tive costs of the five armor types, as shown in the second column of Table 1. Those coefficients, in turn, can yield relative costs per meter height of armor. Actual costs per linear meter can be calculated by using the “factor | of armor concrete cost per meter height.” In one example, design wave height is 7 m; breakwater height is 15 m, and the unit cost of concrete is $120 per m?*. Calculat- ing 0.420x7x 15x 120 gives the Accropode armor cost $5,292 per lin m. PROTECTING OTHER HARBORS When a new outer harbor was proposed for che Port of Calais in * Northern Pance, the designers in- cluded a 1,154 m long eastern breakwater for protection against wave attack. The original design involved placing modified cubicori aon locks on the &posed slope. They were to be 20 tonnes (t) each at the shore end of the breakwater, 30 t for the rest of the running profile, and 50 ¢ for the roundhead. The rear slope was to be ar- mored with blocks weighing 6 and 10 t. The total concrete volume was 76,000 m’, as the design wave height was set at 7 m for the deep- est part of the breakwater. The bid documents authorized alternative solutions, so an Accro- pode armoring proposal was sub- ted by several contractors. The client accepted the alternative in principle, subject to verification by eae TABLE 1 RELATIVE COSTS OF ARMOR BLOCKS Concrete Overall Factor of armor vol. per correction concrete cost__Relative Blocks _marmor ht _coefficient___per mht Ordinary cube 0.94 H, 4.136 1.056 H, Grooved cube 0.704, 4.104 0.73 H, Tetrapod 0.58 H, 1.082 0.627 K, Dolos 0.45 H, 4.103 0.496 4, 0.35 H, 1 0.420 H, | Accropode(ry engineers did adopt a solution us- ing 6.3 m? (15.1 t) Accropode units in the running section and 9 m> (21.6 0) units on the roundhead. The volume of armor concrete was systematic scale model stabiliey yg25,000 m?, at a lower cost tests in wave flume and wave tank; with both regular and random waves. The results were conclusive, and the Accropode solution was adopted. The design is based on use of 4 m? and 6.3 m? units on the running profile and part of the rear slope, and 12 m) units on the roundhead. According to the proj- ect engineers, the Accropode units averaged 25% less than the modi- The extension to the main breakwater at the Port of Beirut in Lebanon is an interesting case, since the waves there can be very high. The project was designed for a significant wave height of 8.2 m and a peak period of 13-17 sec. The exposed slope of the existing Beirut breakwater is protected by large rocks about 15 to 25 t each, placed on a 3:1 slope. For the ex: tension, three designs were com- fied (grooved) cubes per m? of _ pared by the engineers: breakwater protected In mid-Adlantic, a private devel- oper sought to protect his new ma- rina, Puerto Colon, on the western coast of Tenerife Island in the Canaries. Originally, the breakwa- ter armor was to be ordinary cubic block, a technique widely used by Spanish engineers. With a design wave height of around 6.5-7 m and a peak period of 18-20 sec., there could be no question of using nat- ural rock armoring. The quarries on Tenerife, of volcanic origin, could not provide sufficient quan- tities of rocks greater than 4 t each. With rubble mound side slopes of 2:1, the armor was to be formed with 18 ¢ cubic blocks, represent ing a volume of 2.75 m} per m? of facing, and 6.1 m? per m height of breakwater. The developer, seek- ing to lower his costs, asked his consulting engineers to try an Ac- cropode solution. After detkiled stability tests in a wave tank, the METRICS | | Metric or SI equivalents of English units of measurement used in this article are: 3 fe. 10.8 sq ft. 35.3 cu yd. 1. Natural rocks of 18-25 t, den- sity 2.6 t/m}, on a slope of 4.5:1 on the running section; modified cubes 21 m} on a 2:1 slope to be used on the roundhead. 2. Modified cubes of 14 m3, con- crete density 2.4 t/m, on a 3:2 slope for the running section and 27 m? modified cubes on 3:2 slope for the roundhead. 3. An armor of 16 m} Accro- pode units on 4:3 slope in the run- ning section and 18 m? units of the same type and on the same slope on the roundhead. The compared costs, given in Lebanese pounds and based on the September 1985 unit costs, are: (1) Natural rocks, 205 million; (2) modified cubic blocks, 187 million; (3) Accropode blocks, 155 million. The project authority adopted the Accropode design, then tested and adapted it on a scale model in a wave tanks. Results indicated that certain blocks over the rear quarter of the roundhead had to be weighted slightly, to a density of 2.55 t/m?, compared to 2.4 t/m) for the other blocks. Total volume of concrete placed on the struc- ture, which the Lebanese contrac- tor has now nearly completed, is | 23,000 m3 of 16 m3 units and | 21,000 m? of 18 m? units. A redesign also has specified Ac cropode units for the new provec- tive breakwater for two adjacent ports in northeast England. The Tees and Hartlepool Port Authori ty's consultant, D.J. Palmer, hac designed an armor with 2 ¢ rock on a 2:1 slope in the running sex tion and 3:1 slope on the round head. The design wave height i only 3 m because of the relatively shallow depths at the site. Several British contractors pro: posed an alternative for the break- water armor with Accropode units of 0.8 m? (1.92 ¢) placed on a slope of 5:3 for both running profile and roundhead. Judged easier to build and significantly cheaper, the solu- tion was adopted by the port au- thority. It will involve use of 4,100 Accropode units: For the Lynch Point Marina in South Africa, the design wave height is 4.5 m, with a peak period of 13 sec. Among the solutions studied by the South African con- sultants was an armor formed with 6 t dolos units on a slope of I.5:1 This would require 2,180 blocks representing 1.25 f concrete per m? of facing, and an armor thickness of 2.80 m. In another so lution, 9.5 ¢ Accropode units were to be placed on a 4:3 slope. The total of 1,200 blocks required rep- resented 1.04 m? of concrete per rm? of facing, and an armor thick- ness of 2 m. Stability « a wave flume at the laboratory of Stellenbosh University, comparing the units for breakwater stability, wave overtopping conditions and construction cost. This was the first time that Accropode and do- los unies had been compared di rectly, and the client and engineer optad for the Accropode solution. were conducted in Georges E. Vincent, a consulting engineer in Grenoble, France, is former manager of port and coastal engineering for Sogreuh Consulting Engineers, also of Grenoble