Curved Arc-type Buffer Blocks as enhanced extreme Wave Energy Dissipator (Arc-BB-WEnDis)

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Holger Schüttrumpf
• Subject Area: Geotechnics, Hydraulic Engineering
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 453313678

Coastal regions have long played a vital role in supporting the economy, ecology, and human well-being since ancient times. However, they are becoming increasingly vulnerable to extreme events such as tsunamis and storm surges, posing significant risks to human lives and infrastructure. Thus, in addition to developing advanced early warning systems and establishing evacuation routes, it is decisive to develop effective coastal protection measures to minimize or mitigate the impact of flows due to extreme natural coastal hazards like storm surges and tsunamis in highly vulnerable areas. In this context, buffer blocks (i.e., micro-roughness elements) seem to emerge as a promising method for flow deceleration. A number of spatial configurations consisting of rectangular buffer blocks were predominantly explored under different flow characteristics and various spatial configurations. Rectangular buffer blocks were selected for this study due to their practical advantages in construction and their widespread, proven application in stilling basins of dams, making them a reliable and relevant choice for evaluating real-world performance. These studies proved that the buffer blocks helped to reduce tsunami flow momentum between 30% and 70% under emergent conditions, which is comparable to the efficiency of a seawall of medium height. However, systematic investigations under different submergence conditions, spacing between the blocks (laterally and longitudinally), curvature configurations for curved Arc-type buffer blocks, and Froude number conditions are not fully understood. Therefore, we would like to extend the knowledge regarding the effectiveness of curved-Arc-type buffer blocks and the corresponding hydrodynamic processes during extreme events like tsunamis in order to arrive at a meaningful semi-theoretical/empirical relationship between the tsunami-wave energy and momentum dissipation and the configurations of buffer blocks.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: India
• International Co-Applicant: Professor Dr. Venkatachalam Sriram