REPAIR AND REHABILITATION OF CUBE-ARMORED MOUND BREAKWATERS

Hundreds of breakwaters will exceed their service lifetime during the next decades, and will have to be repaired, rehabilitated or dismantled. The placement of heavy units is usually a challenging construction problem of mound breakwaters because wind, waves and crane operators have a relevant influence on the actual positioning of new units. The construction of new breakwaters and the repair and rehabilitation of old ones can be better planned using realistic numerical placement simulations more efficient than realistic physical placement tests. A new proprietary software named PLACSIM® is described in this paper as a realistic numerical simulator of the placement process of armor units. This simulator uses the open-source software for video games PhysX to apply the laws of the Classical Mechanics on rigid bodies; movements and collisions of armor units during the placement process are realistically simulated. This software can be used to analyze the feasibility and results of different placement grids to optimize the placement procedure of a given breakwater in given environmental conditions.