Las formas en la Ingeniería del Mar

Repaso de las formas en la ingeniería de puertos y costas bajo la perspectiva de la sostenibilidad, el respeto medioambiental y el diseño estético de los elementos visto

Recuerdos de Pedro

Semblanza humana y de la obra de Pedro Suárez Bores, catedrático de Puertos de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid desde 1968 a 1999 y profesor emérito de la citada universidad. Dos de las lunas de las hojas caídas del año dos mil diez fueron sombrías. En la primera de ellas, perdí a una de mis referencias humanas, un bastión en mi formación como persona, en mi forma de ser y comportarme, mi padre. En la otra, se fue alguien básico en mi profesión y en la forma de entender la ingeniería del mar, Pedro. Estas líneas pretenden ser un homenaje, una semblanza y un recordatorio de casi treinta años de conversaciones y vivencias entre los do

Isolíneas de realimentación y rellenado en playas sin marea : método de las envolventes para equilibrio morfodinámico en perfil transversal

Conocidas las técnicas de rellenado y realimentación en escalas fisiográficas, los modelos conjuntos economia-rellenado, disipación de energía aplicada a volúmenes de arena perdidos por procesos litorales, el trabajo de investigación presenta un metodo de análisis en perfil mediante envolventes de confianza. Para definir la fiabilidad del diseño se evalúan ante condiciones de clima marítimo y sedimentológicas, las variaciones del perfil berma/barra, reflejante/disipativo, verano/invierno; la velocidad de iniciación del movimiento de la partícula sedimentaria; la altura de ola en rotura y la evolución del perfil de equilibrio. Conocidas las variables del problema se desarrolla un algoritmo de integración de las ecuaciones de flujo costero en diferencias divididas y técnicas de relajación con el fin de presentar un esquema de envolventes máximas y míninas que facilita el diseño en perfil transversal de playas sin marea. Se plantean finalmente conclusiones relacionados por efectos de dragado y teoría de diques en talu

¿Se ajustan las fórmulas de cálculo del manto a los diques existentes?

Se analizan los ensayos existentes para las distintas fórmulas de cálculo del manto, los ajustes en talud indefinido, los elementos de contorno y la respuesta de los diques actuales una vez analizado el clima marítimo actuante mediante los regímenes de extremos procedentes del Organismo Público Puertos del Estad

A nonlinear analysis of laying a floating pipeline on the seabed

In this article, a model for the determination of displacements, strains, and stresses of a submarine pipeline during its construction is presented. Typically, polyethylene outfall pipelines are the ones treated by this model. The process is carried out from an initial floating situation to the final laying position on the seabed. The following control variables are considered in the laying process: the axial load in the pipe, the flooded inner length, and the distance of the control barge from the coast. External loads such as self-weight, dead loads, and forces due to currents and small waves are also taken into account.This paper describes both the conceptual framework for the proposed model and its practical application in a real engineering situation. The authors also consider how the model might be used as a tool to study how sensitive the behavior of the pipeline is to small changes in the values of the control variables. A detailed description of the actions is considered, especially the ones related to the marine environment such as buoyancy, current, and sea waves. The structural behavior of the pipeline is simulated in the framework of a geometrically nonlinear dynamic analysis. The pipeline is assumed to be a two-dimensional Navier_Bernoulli beam. In the nonlinear analysis an updated Lagrangian formulation is used, and special care is taken regarding the numerical aspects of sea bed contact, follower forces due to external water pressures, and dynamic actions. The paper concludes by describing the implementation of the proposed techniques, using the ANSYS computer program with a number of subroutines developed by the authors. This implementation permits simulation of the two-dimensional structural pipe behavior of the whole construction process. A sensitivity analysis of the bending moments, axial forces, and stresses for different values of the control variables is carried out. Using the techniques described, the engineer may optimize the construction steps in the pipe laying proces

Traditional education vs modern education. What is the impact of teaching techniques' evolution on students learning process?

The main objective of this article is to focus on the analysis of teaching techniques, ranging from the use of the blackboard and chalk in old traditional classes, using slides and overhead projectors in the eighties and use of presentation software in the nineties, to the video, electronic board and network resources nowadays. Furthermore, all the aforementioned, is viewed under the different mentalities in which the teacher conditions the student using the new teaching technique, improving soft skills but maybe leading either to encouragement or disinterest, and including the lack of educational knowledge consolidation at scientific, technology and specific levels. In the same way, we study the process of adaptation required for teachers, the differences in the processes of information transfer and education towards the student, and even the existence of teachers who are not any longer appealed by their work due which has become much simpler due to new technologies and the greater ease in the development of classes due to the criteria described on the new Grade Programs adopted by the European Higher Education Area. Moreover, it is also intended to understand the evolution of students’ profiles, from the eighties to present time, in order to understand certain attitudes, behaviours, accomplishments and acknowledgements acquired over the semesters within the degree Programs. As an Educational Innovation Group, another key question also arises. What will be the learning techniques in the future?. How these evolving matters will affect both positively and negatively on the mentality, attitude, behaviour, learning, achievement of goals and satisfaction levels of all elements involved in universities’ education? Clearly, this evolution from chalk to the electronic board, the three-dimensional view of our works and their sequence, greatly facilitates the understanding and adaptation later on to the business world, but does not answer to the unknowns regarding the knowledge and the full development of achievement’s indicators in basic skills of a degree. This is the underlying question which steers the roots of the presented research

The history of technology in education. A comparative study and forecast

Area, launched in 1999 with the Bologna Declaration, has bestowed such a magnitude and unprecedented agility to the transformation process undertaken by European universities. However, the change has been more profound and drastic with regards to the use of new technologies both inside and outside the classroom. This article focuses on the study and analysis of the technology’s history within the university education and its impact on teachers, students and teaching methods. All the elements that have been significant and innovative throughout the history inside the teaching process have been analyzed, from the use of blackboard and chalk during lectures, the use of slide projectors and transparent slides, to the use of electronic whiteboards and Internet nowadays. The study is complemented with two types of surveys that have been performed among teachers and students during the school years 1999 - 2011 in the School of Civil Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Madrid. The pros and cons of each of the techniques and methodologies used in the learning process over the last decades are described, unfolding how they have affected the teacher, who has evolved from writing on a whiteboard to project onto a screen, the student, who has evolved from taking handwritten notes to download information or search the Internet, and the educational process, that has evolved from the lecture to acollaborative learning and project-based learning. It is unknown how the process of learning will evolve in the future, but we do know the consequences that some of the multimedia technologies are having on teachers, students and the learning process. It is our goal as teachers to keep ourselves up to date, in order to offer the student adequate technical content, while providing proper motivation through the use of new technologies. The study provides a forecast in the evolution of multimedia within the classroom and the renewal of the education process, which in our view, will set the basis for future learning process within the context of this new interactive era

Offshore Wind Farms

The coastal zone is the host to many human activities, which have significantly increased in the last decades. However, sea level rise and more frequent storm events severely affect beaches and coastal structures, with negative consequences and dramatic impacts on coastal communities. These aspects add to typical coastal problems, like flooding and beach erosion, which already leading to large economic losses and human fatalities. Modeling is thus fundamental for an exhaustive understanding of the nearshore region in the present and future environment. Innovative tools and technologies may help to better understand coastal processes in terms of hydrodynamics, sediment transport, bed morphology, and their interaction with coastal structures. This book collects several contributions focusing on nearshore dynamics, and span among several time and spatial scales using both physical and numerical approaches. The aim is to describe the most recent advances in coastal dynamics

Geometric detached breakwaters indicators on the Spanish North East coastline

Many beaches have been eroded and the obvious environmental and landscape degradation of many coastal stretches are problems that coastal engineers are spending time solving. With this in mind, different protection methods have been used over time, most on the basis of the artificial nourishment of beaches and the building structures such as groynes and detached breakwaters. Detached breakwaters are artificial structures, generally parallel to the coastline, inspired by the working of natural formations, protecting a certain stretch from wave action and being able to create accretion areas. This is why these structures have been in general use, with different results, since the 1970s in countries such as Japan, the United States, Israel, Spain, Italy, and Australia. The study undertaken for this research focuses precisely on this type of structure, with the purpose of providing an overall view of the state of the art in this field. In addition, the effects of a detached breakwater on the shoreline for a series of real cases on the Spanish coastline were analysed to check whether the empirical relations given by different researchers for classifying the shoreline’s type of response were fulfilled for them all or not. This study only takes formulas on the basis of the geometrical characteristics of breakwaters into consideration as being the most used by design engineers for predesigning a construction. All the formulas studied are based on the nondimensional B/X monomial, which is a ratio between the two most important geometric breakwater parameters (the length of the detached breakwater, B, and its distance to the initial coastline, X), so the result of this work led us to propose the following geometric model for the case of the Catalonian coastline: tombolo formation if B/X _ 1.3; salient formation if 1.3 _ B/X _ 0.5; limited shore response if 0.5 _ B/X

Use and abuse of audivisual media in the college classroom. Slides show and web pages

The multimedia development that has taken place within the university classrooms in recent years has caused a revolution at psychological level within the collectivity of students and teachers inside and outside the classrooms. The slide show applications have become a key supporting element for university professors, who, in many cases, rely blindly in the use of them for teaching. Additionally, ill-conceived slides, poorly structured and with a vast amount of multimedia content, can be the basis of a faulty communication between teacher and student, which is overwhelmed by the appearance and presentation, neglecting their content. The same applies to web pages. This paper focuses on the study and analysis of the impact caused in the process of teaching and learning by the slide show presentations and web pages, and its positive and negative influence on the student’s learning process, paying particular attention to the consequences on the level of attention within the classroom, and on the study outside the classroom. The study is performed by means of a qualitative analysis of student surveys conducted during the last 8 school Civil Engineering School at the Polytechnic University of Madrid. It presents some of the weaknesses of multimedia material, including the difficulties for students to study them, because of the many distractions they face and the need for incentives web pages offer, or the insignificant content and shallowness of the studies due to wrongly formulated presentations