• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.32 no.1B
• /
• pp.59-69
• /
• 2012

Probabilistic design is required to effectively consider the coastal environment of great uncertainty. However, designers who are familiar with the deterministic design method prefer a method which is similar to the existing method but is based on the probabilistic concept. Therefore, the partial safety factor method has been adopted as a new design method over the world. In Korea, Tetrapod is widely used for armoring rubble mound breakwaters. Even though the partial safety factor method developed in the United States and Europe covers Tetrapods, the limited wave and structure conditions in its development make the engineers hesitate about its use in practical breakwater design. In this study, partial safety factors for Tetrapod armor blocks have been developed by analyzing 116 breakwater cross-sections and wave conditions in 16 trade harbors and 15 coastal harbors with the FORM and optimal code calibration approach. Especially, partial safety factors have been proposed depending on the shape parameter of the Weibull extreme wave height distribution. For other types of extreme distributions, it is possible to apply the proposed partial safety factors using the relationship between skewness coefficient and shape parameter. Finally, the proposed partial safety factors have been applied to existing structures to show that they better satisfy the target reliability of the structures than previous partial safety factors.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
• /
• v.28 no.5
• /
• pp.277-283
• /
• 2016

Tetrapod is one of the most widely used concrete armor units for rubble mound breakwaters. The calculation of the stability number of Tetrapods is necessary to determine the optimal weight of Tetrapods. Many empirical formulas have been developed to calculate the stability number of Tetrapods, from the Hudson formula in 1950s to the recent one developed by Suh and Kang. They were developed by using the regression analysis to determine the coefficients of an assumed formula using the experimental data. Recently, software engineering (or machine learning) methods are introduced as a large amount of experimental data becomes available, e.g. artificial neural network (ANN) models for rock armors. However, these methods are seldom used probably because they did not significantly improve the accuracy compared with the empirical formula and/or the engineers are not familiar with them. In this study, we propose an explicit method to calculate the stability number of Tetrapods using the weights and biases of an ANN model. This method can be used by an engineer who has basic knowledge of matrix operation without requiring knowledge of ANN, and it is more accurate than previous empirical formulas.