Application of reinforced soil walls in coastal protection

Reinforced soil is a comparatively new technique for modification of strength characteristics of soil. This technique has been adopted in construction of many types engineering structures such as retaining walls, bridge abutments, foundations, dams and embankments. In recent years, application of reinforced earth have been developed in marine environment for coastal protection, wharf and harbour structures. This thesis evaluates the behaviour of reinforced earth wall when used as a coastal protection structure or as a wharf or harbour structure. For this purpose, the effects of marine environmental factors such as saturation, submergence, changing water level and sea wave loading on the strength and behaviour of reinforced soil wall were investigated. The results of these investigations were then employed to develop the design procedures and a computer program for design optimisation of reinforced earth marine wall. Also, the behaviour of reinforced soil wall in dry condition was investigated, a new theory presented for calculation of ultimate strength of reinforced earth element, and a new formula was proposed for internal analysis of reinforced earth wall. The study was done by conducting comprehensive theoretical, numerical and experimental investigation

Application of MIKE21 Software in Flood Routing of Tidal Rivers: A Case Study of the Zohre River

Flood routing is of special importance from different aspects of river engineering such as flood zoning, flood forecasting, etc. There are two methods employed in river flood routing, hydraulic and hydrological. Hydrological methods are used when the river is at low tide and, hence, cannot be employed to analyze floods caused by the tide. Hydraulic methods must be employed in tidal rivers when the direction of the current reverses at high tide. In this research,MIKE21 modeling software was used for the flood routing of the Zohreh tidal river. The model was calibrated by surveying the river, taking samples form the river bed, measuring sea water level and the velocity of the river flow. Analyzing the sensitivity of the model showed that the coefficient of determination, root mean square error and relative error were 0.95, 0.032, and 0.27, respectively, all indicating the efficacy of the model in simulating different parameters such as velocity, flow rate, and water surface profile. The flood routing results of the tidal currents showed that the hydrograph of the influent and effluent to the reach at high tide (when the current direction is from sea to the river) was similar to the normal flood routing of the river, but at low tide (when the current direction is from the sea to the river) influent and effluent hydrograph would not follow the laws of normal flood routing