Development of an articulated concrete armor unit against high waves and uneven slopes

In this study, a new articulated concrete armor unit named Couple-Lock, which can be enlarged in size to cope with high waves, is easy to secure binding force between units, and can be applied to various field conditions, was developed. The Couple-Lock consists of two symmetrical blocks. One symmetrical block has four legs installed in all directions on one end of the body. Since two left-right symmetrical blocks are connected with a wire rope and behave, a pair of blocks can be treated as a single block and enabling large size to cope with high waves. Also, the Couple-Lock responds flexibly to topographical changes. In order to examine the hydraulic performance and stability of the developed armor unit, a hydraulic model experiment was conducted. As a result, the average reflection coefficients of ordinary wave and storm wave conditions were calculated as 0.433 and 0.533, respectively. The average transmission coefficients under ordinary wave and storm wave conditions were calculated as 0.046 and 0.147, respectively. Among the 62 storm wave conditions, wave overtopping occurred in 50 storm waves. The stability factor of the Couple-Lock was calculated to be about 18, which is twice of the stability factor of the tetrapod.