THE DYNAMICS OF THE VENICE GATE BARRIERS AND THE EXTREME EVENT OF NOVEMBER 22ND, 2022

The design and construction of the most complex storm surge defense system ever made, i.e. the four systems of floating gates at the inlets of the Venice Lagoon (also known as the Mo.S.E. project), took more than forty years since its ideation. The entire spectrum of the fields of Coastal, Civil and Environmental Engineering has been challenged by this project, with contributions from an unprecedented number of national and international research institutions, design and construction firms. One of the many significant challenges has been the modelling of the complex hydrodynamic behavior of the floating gates in waves and current. Investigation was conducted by analytical, numerical and experimental means. Experimental set-up covered vertical and inclined gates in 2D wave flumes, in 3D wave tanks, and the whole four barriers and inlets in 3D layouts; scales ranged from 1:64 to 1:10. Gates were subjected to regular and irregular waves, linear and nonlinear, combined with currents. Each of the three main phases of work of the barrier gates, i.e. lifting, oscillating around the design angle and lowering, have been studied, tested, designed and engineered.