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A Hybrid Solution for the Galveston Seawall

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A Hybrid Solution for the Galveston Seawall J.R.M. Muller A HYBRID SOLUTION FOR THE GALVESTON SEAWALL Additional thesis i COVER PICTURE, SEAWALL BLVD WITH THE PLEASURE PIER AT GALVESTON, TEXAS, COURTESY J.R.M. MULLER ii A HYBRID SOLUTION FOR THE GALVESTON SEAWALL A STUDY ON THE REDUCTION OF THE HYDRAULIC LOADS BY A SAND COVER AT THE GALVESTON SEAWALL WITH THE USE OF XBEACH ADITIONAL THESIS by J.R.M. (JOS) MULLER Supported by: Supervivosers Dr. ir. S. de Vries Delft University of Technology Dr. J. Figlus Texas A&M University – Galveston Campus Software versions used: Matlab R2015b (8.6.0.267246) XBeach v1.22.4867 ‘Kingsday’ ESRI ArcMap v10.4.1.5685 An electronic version of this thesis is available at https://repository.tudelft.nl iii PREFACE This thesis was part of an elective part of my master track Coastal Engineering at Delft University. It was carried out at the Texas A&M Galveston campus and at Delft University of Technology. This project is part of a larger cooperation between DUT and several Texan Universities and institutes for improving the coastal resilience of the Upper Texas Coast and protection against several coastal and hurricane related hazards. I would like to thank Dr. Jens Figlus for his hospitality and for all the support I received. There was always time to talk about the course of the research as well as informal talks. I also would like to thank Juan Horrillo for his help in setting up the model and making use of the multi-core computer. I want to thank my colleagues Andrew, Jacob, Katherine, Tariq, Yoon and the people of the research group for all their help. I also like to thank my parents and all the people who made my stay in Texas really memorable. iv ABSTRACT The Greater Houston Metropolitan Area (GHMA) is located on the Gulf of Mexico coast of the United States and encompasses the city of Houston, Galveston Bay and its six surrounding counties, several ports, as well as the City of Galveston, located on the barrier island of Galveston. The GHMA is of great economic and ecological importance, but is frequently facing threats of hurricanes and accompanying flooding, surge, and wave impact. The City of Galveston is protected from extreme storm impact by a 17-km concrete seawall facing the GoM. Recent investigations have shown that the seawall may not be sufficient any more to protect against a 1 in 100 year design storm (Jonkman et al., 2015). Since raising the seawall disconnects the city from the beach and may be very costly, a hybrid approach is being discussed in which the existing hard structure is covered by a dune. During storm conditions, the dune that fronts and covers the structure erodes, potentially exposing the seawall. In that process, however, the sand material serves as an extra protection. However, the soft cover contribution to the level of protection is unclear and no design standards for such hybrid solutions exist. This numerical model study investigates the hydro- and morphodynamic effects of adding a sand cover to the Galveston seawall under extreme storm conditions. A total of 33 different conceptual designs were conceived, that differ in beach height, beach length, dune width and dune slope. Also the shape of the seawall itself was adapted to check for the influence of the core structure. These designs were simulated with a 2DH process-based model, XBeach (Roelvink et al., 2009). This model was developed to simulate storm impacts on coastal morphology. The model set-up was validated by simulating Hurricane Ike at different sections of Galveston Island. The validated set-up was used for the hybrid simulations with an alongshore uniform bathymetry and a synthetic 1 in 100 design storm. The starting position was to keep the current elevation of the Galveston Seawall as low as possible. The variables of interest of each run consisted of the wave induced set- up and the wave height at the breaking point closest to shore. The validation runs showed satisfactory model performance related to Hurricane Ike impact on island morphology. Erosion volumes were slightly overpredicted, due to simplifications such as not including vegetation and non- erodible surfaces. The results of the simulations showed an overall correlation between the maxima in set-up and wave height in the surf zone close to shore, which was influenced by the dimensions of the sand cover. In general, a larger volume of sand in front of the seawall results in a lower wave height close to shore. This causes a change in the bed level and a modification of the surf zone width. Therefore, the dissipation of energy in the surf zone is more concentrated compared to the situation with no additional sediment, increasing the local wave-induced set-up. This effect can reach to a 40% decrease in wave height in the surf zone and an increase up to 25% in set-up, in comparison to no sand cover. Furthermore, the influence of the slope of the wall was investigated. Several simulations were done with a sloped non-erodible seawall in combination with a sand cover. The results showed a lower wave height in the surf zone close to shore without increasing the local wave-induced set-up. Due the sloped seawall, less scouring occurs at the tow of the structure. Therefore, the local water depth and wave height is smaller. This decreases the bed level change and therefore limits the increase of wind-induced set-up. This study gave a first insight in the reduction of the hydrodynamic loads due to a sand cover over a seawall. The usage of XBeach for these hybrid cases showed reliable results, without extensive preparations. In order to rehabilitate the Galveston Seawall to provide sufficient protection, a sand cover can have a beneficial effect. Adapting the current seawall into a more conventional sea dike showed to be an effective measure as well. However, the feasibility of applying a hybrid solution has to be researched in more depth. The erosion of dune material during a storm event could result in this type of hybrid coastal protection to be too costly to maintain. v LIST OF ACRONYMS GSW Galveston Seawall DEM Digital Elevation Model GHMA Greater Houston Metropolitan Area GPS Global Positioning System JOint North Sea WAve Project, a common method of JONSWAP characterizing ocean wave spectra LAS LASer, common extension for point cloud data LATEX Louisiana and Northern Texas Light Detection And Ranging of Laser Imaging LiDAR Detection And Ranging MHW Mean High Water MLW Mean Low Water Morphological Factor, feature in XBeach to allow for Morfac reducing the computational time. MSL Mean Sea Level NAVD88 North American Vertical Datum of 1988 NDBC National Data Buoy Center NGS National Geodetic Survey NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOS National Ocean Service USACE United States Army Corps of Engineers USD United States Dollars USGS United States Geological Survey UTC Coordinated Universal Time, universal time standard. WGS84 World Geodetic System 1984 vi NOMENCLATURE 휟 Difference operator [-] 휽 Angle of incidence w.r.t. x [rad] Density of water [kg‧m-3] 흆 Breaking parameter [-] 휸 Iribarren number [-] 흃 Surface elevation above still water level [m] 휼 Still water level [m] 풉ퟎ Water depth at breaking [m] 풉풃 -2 -2 푬 Wave Energy [J‧m ‧s ] Wave group velocity [m‧s-1] 풄품 -2 푫 Dissipation term for wave energy [W‧m ] 풅 Water depth [m] x-directed wave-induced force [N‧m-2] 푭풙 -2 품 Gravitational accaleration constant [m‧s ] 푯 Waveheigth [m] 풉 Water level [m] Wave height at breaking [m] 푯풃 Maximum wave height at breaking [m] 푯풃,풎풂풙 Root mean square wave height [m] 푯풓풎풔 Significant wave height [m] 푯풔 푳 Wave length [m] 풏 Wave group to the phase celerity ratio [-] Wave-induced pressure [N‧m-2] 풑풘풂풗풆 -2 푺 Source term for waves energy [W‧m ] x-directed momentum flux in the x-direction [N‧m-1] 푺풙풙 x-directed momentum flux in the y-direction [N‧m-1] 푺퐱퐲 풕 Time [s] vii Flow velocity in x-direction [m‧s-1] 풖풙 풙 Cross-shore axis coordinate [m] 풚 Long-shore axis coordinate [m] 풛 Vertical axis coordinate [m] viii TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ............................................................................................................................................................................ IV ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................................................... V LIST OF ACRONYMS ........................................................................................................................................................... VI NOMENCLATURE .............................................................................................................................................................. VII TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................................................................................... IX 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................................................... 11 1.1. BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................................................................ 11 1.2. PROBLEM DESCRIPTION .................................................................................................................................................... 12 1.3. OBJECTIVE ....................................................................................................................................................................
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