An Optimal Design Method for the Entire Breakwater System Using the Level III Reliability Based Design

Abstract

The main purpose of the present study is to introduce an optimal procedure to consider the economical as well as stability aspects into the current model of the Level III reliability based design. To achieve this purpose, first the entire breakwater system composed of the upright section and the rubble mound is considered as the target domain, whereas the past studies have mainly focused on the upright section only. Secondly, two new failure modes, bearing capacity and circular slip failure, are incorporated into the previous model to evaluate the failure probabilities within the service lifetime for the entire section of a breakwater. The validity of the procedure proposed was confirmed through trial calculations. It is expected the newly proposed procedure can prevail over current design methods for breakwaters.