Abstracts Biological Sciences

Stability of toe and slope structures of rubble mound breakwaters:

by M. Van den Berk

Existing stability relationships for toe and slope structures of rubble mound breakwaters (e.g. by Gerding and Van der Meer) are empirical and do not give a clear insight in the actual physical processes near the structure. In this research an attempt is made to enlarge this insight and to derive new stability relationships in which this insight is incorporated. This study consists of two parts. The first part contains an extended analysis into the stability oftoe structures based on former experiments, carried out by Gerding and Docters van Leeuwen. Also computations are made to see, whether the one-dimensional numerical flow model ODIFLOCS can be used to determine the stability of a toe structure. The second part of this study handles the stability of slope structures. In this part, it is investigated whether the model ODIFLOCS, in combination with simple stability criteria, can be used for calculating the stability of a rubble mound slope structure.