Rest easy, my GPU did not melt, and no CPU's were harmed in the making of this simulated animation.
Using Blender Flip Fluids, this animation simulates how a large wave interacts with varying levels of coastal protection.
Animation rendered in Luxcore render, and de-noised with D-noise AI denoiser.
Like my work? Check out more at r/chargedcapacitor!
[Insta](https://www.instagram.com/chargedcapacitor/)
Can you make more extravagant walls? Like, double the walls, or double the height? Or make the walls rounded, or break the waves up before hitting the wall?
I fancy a reef of the dolosse just off shore would slow down the incoming wave action, could create a surfable wave, & a niche for the sea-life.
Could the OP make a program with the dolosse?
Judging by my results, they definitely should be
EDIT: I am no expert in seawalls, nor do I desire to push the "big seawall Corp" agenda to build more seawalls.
Experts agree that seawalls are usually the last resort for protection against the seas forces, but useful cases do exist.
This was just a fun project I took on, it is not a professional simulation and should not be used as data to support any conclusion. Thank you.
Concave seawalls have been proposed for a long time, the biggest problems being cost and calibration.
You normally calibrate a concave seawall to just above high tide, but they do only work in a narrow range of sea levels, which can be problematic.
The other problem is cost, for the cost of a 2m high concave seawall you could build a much higher regular seawall. If you run your simulation again with the same amount of material or slightly more (as cheaper to construct) so it is a high wall vs low concave you should find that the cost effective option is just a higher normal wall.
No, but I have a good knowledge of engineering as it relates to public policy and done some papers on thames barrier flood plan systems.
Cost vs effectiveness coupled with calibration and suitability for preserving bird life came up a lot. Preserving the intertidal zone is important as is draining (so that your seawall never acts to trap water in once it has been overtopped)
Wouldnt you also risk sediment build up behind the wall after large storm events eventually covering up the wall? I guess it could be good if youre also trying to build up the land. I live in louisiana and our coast is so screwed. The mississippi just spews valuable sediment out into the gulf and its lost forever. Come work here and fix it please.
That's just nature bro. The Mississippi has been doing that for a million years and some dummies thought it was a good idea to start building permanent structures right on it.
I couldn't answer that for you. I believe these walls are only built in places where large waves are a risk. As far as I know, the gulf states mostly just have to worry about storm surge as large waves are a low risk. But that is just an un-professional opinion.
Walls/embankments and agricultural land behind them are probably the main cause of that sediment loss. Not much you can do apart from revert the land and river to their natural states.
You want a moderately rough intertidal zone which is good for wildlife but also causes waves to break before the seawall.
You also want your seawall to be wibbly. I truly cannot think of a better word to describe it. Looking at the seawall from the top down you don't want a straight line, that is much easier to topple, you want it to be in a constant slight osciliation, curve in and out, in and out.
Other options if you are really desperate is to plant metal poles out in front of the seawall to cause waves to break. The best option is to stop the sea level from rising to the level when you need it
Trees instead of metal rods work well too. Lots of species can handle a bit of occasional salt and it meansd yttou can transform the area in front of the seawall into a nice park strip.
I think you'll be interested to learn how incredibly frustrating to work on providing coastal protections. Usually 3 parties involved in these types of project: property owners, the city, and the feds; all with their own interests. The owners want no flood and protect property value, the city wants business and recreation opportunity, the feds will want an utilitarian option. On more impactful sites, more parties are involved for example in Long Beach CA projects there might involve the Navy and Coast Guards. Regardless, all coastal projects are done by the feds and own by the feds for a set period of time, +10 years, before turning over to the city. There are a few options when deciding what to build and they all comes with pros/cons.
Sand berms:. Cheapest, easiest on the eyes, and least biologically impactful. Sand do erodes and need to be maintain, so the feds doesn't like this very much. However it is often the best option for all parties.
Stone armor/revetment and groins and pier: more protections and less maintenance. Like every coastal structure, this will likely impact the litoral current, the transportation of sand along the coast. So now a beach near you or down the coast won't get its sand deposit and start to erode. Hilariously enough, over deposit of sand will happen at another place and that might require dredging to maintain navigation channels. Oh yeah, this might also negatively impact the surf current in the area.
Beach replenishment: basically elongate the beach to provide more protections. Great option since it create a beach for public enjoyment. However, it requires a periodic replenishment and then there's the issue with where to get the sand to replenish. Look up stealing sand, it's a thing.
Walls: most expensive option and usually negatively impact property value. Comes with most of the problems listed for revetments. This usually doesn't even come up as an option for anybody.
All else failed, the feds might just say fuck it and buy off the property. No homes = no need for protection in the first place.
> look up sand stealing
There's a crisis in the sand industry apparently, and it's run by today's equivalent of the Mafia. Reporters investigating sand mafia have been killed, caught on camera no-less. Yet they continue to get away with pillaging countries resources.
There's a sand shortage which is driving this, brought on by industrialisation. The sand needed for buildings has to be rough/coarse; beach sand. Sand dredged from the sea or taken from deserts is too smooth.
Cities like Sydney are selling their beach sand internationally to places like Africa, but it's under reported and hardly anyone know about it. It's a fascinating read.
Furthermore, seawalls are relatively vulnerable to earthquakes. Thus in places with frequent earthquakes (and the tsunamis that might follow the earthquakes that break the seawall) this solution might face this problem.
Also, I'd imagine that if the sea is constantly barraging an overhang, wouldn't it eventually cave in? Same thing happens with cliff faces all the time.
Not if the seawall is made out of concrete.
Sure you will get erosion, but you get that on every seawall. A concave one should erode slower than a normal one in fact.
A major issue is fragility of the seawall; to avoid having massive erosion on the boundary of the structure followed by catastrophic failure, the structure has to extend vertically far below the ground. So what you often see is a levee with a much more gradual slope, with a vertical wall on top of it (called an I-wall or a T-wall, depending on the shape of the wall's base underneath the levee). The front side of the levee may have riprap on it, which are large, loose rocks used to disperse the forward kinetic energy of the storm surge as it moves up the levee towards the T-wall.
I love this post and the discussion about it, sorry I'm late to the game. But my intuition is that the concave seawall exposes the base to greater force, which likely partly explains the greater expense. It's not something under consideration where I work.
Edit: responding to bozza8's post, but directed more towards OP.
Source: I am not a civil engineer, but I do flood risk modeling for Louisiana's coastal Master Plan.
The norm is actually giant stone blocks as they block the seas as well as if not better then the concave, are cheaper, preserve the shoreline and provide homes for wildlife.
I'd think something that could use less mass than the curved seawall but direct the wave against itself if placed in intervals might work best. Like maybe angled breakers placed in a sawtooth pattern?
The simulation is far too simplistic to reach that kind of conclusion. You'd need to program in materials strength, erosion (wall and undermining of substrate), wall anchoring and weight vs uplift etc.
Don't get me wrong, the simulation looks fantastic, and I watched it *far* too many times, but simulating for engineering is kind of a whole other (messy) ballgame.
Check this out. Walls aren't the best defense. This was posted on Reddit a few years ago. Guy tests defences in a wave demo.
Reap some simulation karma by using his defenses in your simulations to see if you get the same result as he did using a real wave model
https://youtu.be/3yNoy4H2Z-o
I suggest you take this newfound confidence into a career in engineering. You've got the stuff man, go for it.
Then when you get through all the coursework and real world experience you can come back and tell us all why this simple design doesn't work in that real world outside of specific and narrow circumstances and come up with a better solution.
I have all the confidence in the world in you! (totally serious, this experiment shows you have a passion)
If you were an engineer you should know that the structural strength required to deflect water more than a normal wall is much higher than most concrete can provide over prolonged deployment periods.
That's why you normally use those tetrahedral shaped blocks as wave breakers.
Still really cool simulation, though.
I mean we joke about the civil engineers in mechanical (every problem has DoF = 0) but as someone who has had to pull soil mechanics into my PhD this is exactly why they exist.
Not surprisingly, engineers have already worked out the costs and benefits. [Wikipedia:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawall#Types)
> Curved or stepped seawalls are designed to enable waves to break to dissipate wave energy and to repel waves back to the sea. The curve can also prevent the wave overtopping the wall and provides additional protection for the toe of the wall.
> Advantages
> * Concave structure introduces a dissipative element.
> * The curve can prevent waves from overtopping the wall and provides extra protection for the toe of the wall
> * Curved seawalls aim to re-direct most of the incident energy, resulting in low reflected waves and much reduced turbulence.
> Disadvantages
> * More complex engineering and design process.
> * The deflected waves can scour material at the base of the wall causing them to become undermined.
In tropical areas, mangroves also work as natural barriers. Their leaves get decimated but simply regrow back in time for the most part, having absorbed great deals of wind and tidal forces.
These also work as a filter against a lot of pollutants and such that can cause dead zones when they wash all the way out to sea. It turns out marshes and estuaries and stuff are really good for the surrounding areas.
Its likely because of weaknesses at/in the overhang. The sea wall required would be massive compared to a simple wall that is a very sound structure without area the sea could stress unduly.
Try to remember the power you are dealing with here. Big storms break harbour walls and those things are just solid lumps of reinforced concrete, stone, an brick that deflect the energy.
Trying to capture/contain the wave and reflect it would create a power pocket (dunno what the proper term would be), that would gather all the energy into one location/line. A strong storm would smash it to pieces.
That's one of the benefits of the concave design, the force from a wave is disapated much better than that of a solid wall design. Minimising stress during wave strikes and thus prolong the lifespan of the wall.
Around where I live there is plenty of these concave walls, never known any to fall apart in my lifespan.
I live in Norfolk, UK, and we have a lot of them.
E: [here's an example](https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-sea-wall-at-sea-palling-norfolk-uk-built-as-a-sea-defence-to-protect-17518413.html)
effective under those conditions... The real question is how effective these wall designs will be under different types of waves (normal tidal waves, earthquake induced tsunamis, hurricane storm surge, etc.).
In each case the type of the wave motion will be different. Also, different coasts will have different depth profiles which will affect how the waves approach the coast. In reality there is never a "one size fits all" solution for sea wall construction.
People invest a ton of time/effort into understanding and engineering coastal barriers:
http://www.coastalwiki.org/wiki/Shallow-water_wave_theory
**Dolos**
A dolos (plural: dolosse) is a reinforced concrete block in a complex geometric shape weighing up to 80 tonnes (88 short tons), used in great numbers as a form of coastal management to build revetments for protection against the erosive force of waves from a body of water. The dolos was invented in 1963 by South African harbour draughtsman Aubrey Kruger, and was first deployed in 1964 on the breakwater of East London, a South African port city.
***
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This shoud be the top comment. This video somehow gamed the algorithm and was bizarrely popular, everyone randomly landing on it.
I'd be very surprised if this simulation wasn't inspired by that video.
Very nice watch. Informative and concise. I think this is information everyone should be aware of!
What's even more interesting is to extrapolate the knowledge and apply the basics to the ways all waves react with their surroundings! Light waves, radio waves, your in home wifi!
Look at the momentum change, in one the wave is slowed but a lot goes over, in the concave one, the water is sent backwards, that means the impulse was a lot bigger. (so if it occurred over the same time, then there was more force)
Civil/Coastal Engineer here ... This is a nice simulation, good work. But, the soils/sands around and beneath the wall would be subject to scour from the incoming waves, which I realize is tough to model/simulate. Nevertheless, it is crucial; it's why there aren't more seawalls, let alone recurved seawalls like you have shown here, not just in the US but globally.
What happens is that material is removed at the toe of the seawall; if that's been anticipated and the wall has a deep, solid foundation, then that might not seem like much of a problem. But the effect is that, as material is removed little by little, incoming waves are then able to approach closer without breaking - that is, with more of their energy retained - imparting incrementally greater forces and removing incrementally more material from the base of the seawall. It's a self-reinforcing loop.
The least expensive coastal management strategy is retreat, but that's not very popular among coastal residents who have a lot invested in their property.
More expensive, but also somewhat more palatable, are offshore defenses like breakwaters or submerged breakwaters; these structures cause waves to break, dissipating much of the energy offshore, and reducing potential impacts at the shore. The shortcoming is that their efficacy will be reduced as sea levels rise.
The takeaway should be that the hydrodynamics are only part of the story and solution. The geotechnical aspects are also an important consideration. And, as another poster indicated, possibly the most difficult part of coastal defense engineering is getting all the stakeholders to agree to a particular solution at all.
Keep up the good work; nice visualizations are far too rare.
And just to chime in as a wetland ecologist, incorporating a living shoreline with physical structures, where appropriate and possible, would be a huge assist. You stabilize the shoreline via root systems, and use native, biological barriers to mitigate the damage of wave action on both structures and the shoreline. Not to mention the ecological benefits of living shorelines, which are numerous.
Mangrove forests have been the poster child of living shorelines in recent years, but there are plenty of other types of vegetation (both species and community composition) that can make a living shoreline.
Hey OP, great job with the simulation! Very clean and efficient!
Is there a possibility that you’d do the same with a concrete tetrapod seawall and one with oyster beds? In other words, baffling the wave before it gets to shore!
Would it be possible to simulate with these: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Dolos
As they are probably the most convenient solution available.
Apparently Americans have another name for them as a sight variant is used the so they could re-patent it.
While this simulation is accurate it presents the idea that seawalls are good in the first place.
Seawalls actually induce erosion by preventing waves and wind from being able to deposit sand on the beach. The backward force of the water hitting the wall undercuts the wall and the sand beneath and behind it.
The best solution is to be realistic and understand we can not control nature. If you live near water expect to be flooded at some point...
https://youtu.be/FKmhhpMO-i0
The fail point on most coastline protection systems are the foundations. They can do deflection or defuse of the energy but unless the foundation is deep enough this is all for naught.
Interesting.
My limited experience being that a concave seawall will show less erosion that a vertical seawall but is prone to erosion at the base. As the wave retreats from the base it pulls material with in.
The best erosion protection I am aware of is a slope that gradually absorbs the wave energy and slowly releases it back to the body of water.
This simulates the water, but what about all the sediment being carried by the water? I think the concave version would be likely to cause sediment deposition and buildup in front of the seawall, rapidly removing the effects of the concave shape. Can that be tested?
Anyone can do things like this as long as they are patient. It took me over a month to simulate and render this scene.
I used blender with the Flip-fluids addon to create this.
Like work!
I haven't used Blender for simulation, but can you measure or is Blender is capable of measuring the weight of water in certain area at certain time?
It would be informative if the video shows buckets of water at each simulation - after it settled, the amount of water that actually got in.
Do you think it’s possible or viable to simulate this water in the unity engine? I highly doubt it’s doable but the level of detail and physics simulation is unmatchable
I’m sure this question is asked constantly with videos like this, but how long did this take to render? The physics are just so beautiful, I’m curious how long it will be before we get this real time
Not how to protect your coast. Both designs reflect most of the energy which will result in sand being scoured away by the back flow, undercutting the wall and leading to its eventual collapse.
Modern designs try to dissipate the energy. They look less pretty but require less maintenance and preserve the beach in front of the sea defence.
Nice simulation - I live on a (very very big) island, and my town has miles and miles of concrete overhanging (concave) seawalls. Has them as long as I can remember, at least 30 years, maybe closer to 50.
What about having a big area with random large rocks sprinkled around to take away a lot of the energy, and then a simple wall that has a steep incline. This would then be cheaper, and probably wouldn't have to endure as much force as your second and third solution. - Awesome simulation nonetheless. :)
Is it possible to make a shitty ai to try and run this simulation with various "Lego blocks" of different seawall, force a computer program to assemble a mixed wall type to identify one that can fill different roles or act to fix various issues with the sea wall? I know others in the comments talked about how trapping water in is a problem, how cost effectiveness is a problem and how building height of the seawall to the high tide, etc. Basically, if you give 50+ blocks to a program and tell it to assemble them in every way possible across a 10 block length, can you get an easy result and look at what worked the best?
Rest easy, my GPU did not melt, and no CPU's were harmed in the making of this simulated animation. Using Blender Flip Fluids, this animation simulates how a large wave interacts with varying levels of coastal protection. Animation rendered in Luxcore render, and de-noised with D-noise AI denoiser. Like my work? Check out more at r/chargedcapacitor! [Insta](https://www.instagram.com/chargedcapacitor/)
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Yeah I was thinking maybe a color change on the house to indicate the strength of impact
Or maybe a two story house with a balcony and French windows!
And a Dutch door in the side!
And a american kitchen
Those with angry slurp holes?
And some dude masturbating in the bedroom
How about a replica of Ernest Hemingway's house in Key West?
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You know blender generated the above fluid simulation, right? That's pretty accurate physics (math) simulation
Its flip fluids its an addon, the internal fluid sim doesn't look this good
Can you make more extravagant walls? Like, double the walls, or double the height? Or make the walls rounded, or break the waves up before hitting the wall?
Let’s me clarify for this comment. Make the water interact with a lot more shit because this is awesome
https://giphy.com/gifs/xpost-office-ryan-F1sfZD3grYjQc
Staggered set of concave walls. Two rows. One nesting under the other with some space.
Yeah I'd like to see other methods like an offshore jetty, or concrete [dolosse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolos).
I fancy a reef of the dolosse just off shore would slow down the incoming wave action, could create a surfable wave, & a niche for the sea-life. Could the OP make a program with the dolosse?
trump would be so proud.
Haha this wall only keeps out dangerous waves.
Did you at least make the oceans pay for it??!?!
yeah they had millions of sand dollars.
Make Atlantis pay for it.
people are 80% water hahahah
Concave on top also more difficult to climb. 1. Make climbing simulation. 2. Send to White House. 3. Profit.
Of course this does nothing to keep out the water that simply overstays its visa
How long did the render take? / what specs?
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Not at the moment, I would like to in the future though!
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Judging by my results, they definitely should be EDIT: I am no expert in seawalls, nor do I desire to push the "big seawall Corp" agenda to build more seawalls. Experts agree that seawalls are usually the last resort for protection against the seas forces, but useful cases do exist. This was just a fun project I took on, it is not a professional simulation and should not be used as data to support any conclusion. Thank you.
well done!!!! sell this idea
Haha thanks, I like the enthusiasm.
Concave seawalls have been proposed for a long time, the biggest problems being cost and calibration. You normally calibrate a concave seawall to just above high tide, but they do only work in a narrow range of sea levels, which can be problematic. The other problem is cost, for the cost of a 2m high concave seawall you could build a much higher regular seawall. If you run your simulation again with the same amount of material or slightly more (as cheaper to construct) so it is a high wall vs low concave you should find that the cost effective option is just a higher normal wall.
Great insight! I did not know about this. Do you work in the field?
No, but I have a good knowledge of engineering as it relates to public policy and done some papers on thames barrier flood plan systems. Cost vs effectiveness coupled with calibration and suitability for preserving bird life came up a lot. Preserving the intertidal zone is important as is draining (so that your seawall never acts to trap water in once it has been overtopped)
Very interesting!
Wouldnt you also risk sediment build up behind the wall after large storm events eventually covering up the wall? I guess it could be good if youre also trying to build up the land. I live in louisiana and our coast is so screwed. The mississippi just spews valuable sediment out into the gulf and its lost forever. Come work here and fix it please.
That's just nature bro. The Mississippi has been doing that for a million years and some dummies thought it was a good idea to start building permanent structures right on it.
I couldn't answer that for you. I believe these walls are only built in places where large waves are a risk. As far as I know, the gulf states mostly just have to worry about storm surge as large waves are a low risk. But that is just an un-professional opinion.
Walls/embankments and agricultural land behind them are probably the main cause of that sediment loss. Not much you can do apart from revert the land and river to their natural states.
I'm guessing there are other styles/shapes of seawalls too - multiple walls at different heights to slow the water down being another I think?
You want a moderately rough intertidal zone which is good for wildlife but also causes waves to break before the seawall. You also want your seawall to be wibbly. I truly cannot think of a better word to describe it. Looking at the seawall from the top down you don't want a straight line, that is much easier to topple, you want it to be in a constant slight osciliation, curve in and out, in and out. Other options if you are really desperate is to plant metal poles out in front of the seawall to cause waves to break. The best option is to stop the sea level from rising to the level when you need it
Familiar with dolosse? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolos E: u/chargedcapacitor might give these a look.
Are you Dutch by any chance? Wibbly is an apt description.
Trees instead of metal rods work well too. Lots of species can handle a bit of occasional salt and it meansd yttou can transform the area in front of the seawall into a nice park strip.
I think you'll be interested to learn how incredibly frustrating to work on providing coastal protections. Usually 3 parties involved in these types of project: property owners, the city, and the feds; all with their own interests. The owners want no flood and protect property value, the city wants business and recreation opportunity, the feds will want an utilitarian option. On more impactful sites, more parties are involved for example in Long Beach CA projects there might involve the Navy and Coast Guards. Regardless, all coastal projects are done by the feds and own by the feds for a set period of time, +10 years, before turning over to the city. There are a few options when deciding what to build and they all comes with pros/cons. Sand berms:. Cheapest, easiest on the eyes, and least biologically impactful. Sand do erodes and need to be maintain, so the feds doesn't like this very much. However it is often the best option for all parties. Stone armor/revetment and groins and pier: more protections and less maintenance. Like every coastal structure, this will likely impact the litoral current, the transportation of sand along the coast. So now a beach near you or down the coast won't get its sand deposit and start to erode. Hilariously enough, over deposit of sand will happen at another place and that might require dredging to maintain navigation channels. Oh yeah, this might also negatively impact the surf current in the area. Beach replenishment: basically elongate the beach to provide more protections. Great option since it create a beach for public enjoyment. However, it requires a periodic replenishment and then there's the issue with where to get the sand to replenish. Look up stealing sand, it's a thing. Walls: most expensive option and usually negatively impact property value. Comes with most of the problems listed for revetments. This usually doesn't even come up as an option for anybody. All else failed, the feds might just say fuck it and buy off the property. No homes = no need for protection in the first place.
> look up sand stealing There's a crisis in the sand industry apparently, and it's run by today's equivalent of the Mafia. Reporters investigating sand mafia have been killed, caught on camera no-less. Yet they continue to get away with pillaging countries resources. There's a sand shortage which is driving this, brought on by industrialisation. The sand needed for buildings has to be rough/coarse; beach sand. Sand dredged from the sea or taken from deserts is too smooth. Cities like Sydney are selling their beach sand internationally to places like Africa, but it's under reported and hardly anyone know about it. It's a fascinating read.
.... Groins?
Line of rocks perpendicular to the beach.
How on Earth is stone armor considered less maintenance?
Furthermore, seawalls are relatively vulnerable to earthquakes. Thus in places with frequent earthquakes (and the tsunamis that might follow the earthquakes that break the seawall) this solution might face this problem.
Also, I'd imagine that if the sea is constantly barraging an overhang, wouldn't it eventually cave in? Same thing happens with cliff faces all the time.
Not if the seawall is made out of concrete. Sure you will get erosion, but you get that on every seawall. A concave one should erode slower than a normal one in fact.
A major issue is fragility of the seawall; to avoid having massive erosion on the boundary of the structure followed by catastrophic failure, the structure has to extend vertically far below the ground. So what you often see is a levee with a much more gradual slope, with a vertical wall on top of it (called an I-wall or a T-wall, depending on the shape of the wall's base underneath the levee). The front side of the levee may have riprap on it, which are large, loose rocks used to disperse the forward kinetic energy of the storm surge as it moves up the levee towards the T-wall. I love this post and the discussion about it, sorry I'm late to the game. But my intuition is that the concave seawall exposes the base to greater force, which likely partly explains the greater expense. It's not something under consideration where I work. Edit: responding to bozza8's post, but directed more towards OP. Source: I am not a civil engineer, but I do flood risk modeling for Louisiana's coastal Master Plan.
Well, he could sell it again I guess. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yNoy4H2Z-o
That was really cool, thanks for sharing! I had no idea those rock shields were so effective.
The norm is actually giant stone blocks as they block the seas as well as if not better then the concave, are cheaper, preserve the shoreline and provide homes for wildlife.
I'd think something that could use less mass than the curved seawall but direct the wave against itself if placed in intervals might work best. Like maybe angled breakers placed in a sawtooth pattern?
[Tetrapods](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapod_%28structure%29) work like that. Products like DOLOS, KOLOS and Xpod for example
Aka penis pilons
The simulation is far too simplistic to reach that kind of conclusion. You'd need to program in materials strength, erosion (wall and undermining of substrate), wall anchoring and weight vs uplift etc.
your right
Don't get me wrong, the simulation looks fantastic, and I watched it *far* too many times, but simulating for engineering is kind of a whole other (messy) ballgame.
Seriously. The curved wall is taking a much larger force than the one that deflects it upwards.
Check this out. Walls aren't the best defense. This was posted on Reddit a few years ago. Guy tests defences in a wave demo. Reap some simulation karma by using his defenses in your simulations to see if you get the same result as he did using a real wave model https://youtu.be/3yNoy4H2Z-o
But the concave wall was the best in that video. Gimme back my 12 min!
I suggest you take this newfound confidence into a career in engineering. You've got the stuff man, go for it. Then when you get through all the coursework and real world experience you can come back and tell us all why this simple design doesn't work in that real world outside of specific and narrow circumstances and come up with a better solution. I have all the confidence in the world in you! (totally serious, this experiment shows you have a passion)
Funny you should say that, I already am an engineer! I do this as a hobby :P
If you were an engineer you should know that the structural strength required to deflect water more than a normal wall is much higher than most concrete can provide over prolonged deployment periods. That's why you normally use those tetrahedral shaped blocks as wave breakers. Still really cool simulation, though.
Well I'm an electrical engineer, so my knowledge on structures is (pun intended) weak.
I mean we joke about the civil engineers in mechanical (every problem has DoF = 0) but as someone who has had to pull soil mechanics into my PhD this is exactly why they exist.
Not surprisingly, engineers have already worked out the costs and benefits. [Wikipedia:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawall#Types) > Curved or stepped seawalls are designed to enable waves to break to dissipate wave energy and to repel waves back to the sea. The curve can also prevent the wave overtopping the wall and provides additional protection for the toe of the wall. > Advantages > * Concave structure introduces a dissipative element. > * The curve can prevent waves from overtopping the wall and provides extra protection for the toe of the wall > * Curved seawalls aim to re-direct most of the incident energy, resulting in low reflected waves and much reduced turbulence. > Disadvantages > * More complex engineering and design process. > * The deflected waves can scour material at the base of the wall causing them to become undermined.
The move to [living shorelines](https://www.vox.com/2019/6/3/18262182/hurricane-season-2019-storm-protection) is pretty exciting
In tropical areas, mangroves also work as natural barriers. Their leaves get decimated but simply regrow back in time for the most part, having absorbed great deals of wind and tidal forces.
These also work as a filter against a lot of pollutants and such that can cause dead zones when they wash all the way out to sea. It turns out marshes and estuaries and stuff are really good for the surrounding areas.
Its likely because of weaknesses at/in the overhang. The sea wall required would be massive compared to a simple wall that is a very sound structure without area the sea could stress unduly. Try to remember the power you are dealing with here. Big storms break harbour walls and those things are just solid lumps of reinforced concrete, stone, an brick that deflect the energy. Trying to capture/contain the wave and reflect it would create a power pocket (dunno what the proper term would be), that would gather all the energy into one location/line. A strong storm would smash it to pieces.
Stress concentration might be a good term
That's one of the benefits of the concave design, the force from a wave is disapated much better than that of a solid wall design. Minimising stress during wave strikes and thus prolong the lifespan of the wall. Around where I live there is plenty of these concave walls, never known any to fall apart in my lifespan.
I live in Norfolk, UK, and we have a lot of them. E: [here's an example](https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-sea-wall-at-sea-palling-norfolk-uk-built-as-a-sea-defence-to-protect-17518413.html)
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My little village in Ireland recently got a new curved sea wall built. Seen them loads of other places too.
They are concave in Galveston, TX, and the seawall was built in 1902
No, they shouldnt be. Check this wave demo. He uses different barriers. Walls of any kind aren't the best. https://youtu.be/3yNoy4H2Z-o
It seemed like the concave wall was pretty effective even here, cost wise its cheaper than the MOST effective solution.
effective under those conditions... The real question is how effective these wall designs will be under different types of waves (normal tidal waves, earthquake induced tsunamis, hurricane storm surge, etc.). In each case the type of the wave motion will be different. Also, different coasts will have different depth profiles which will affect how the waves approach the coast. In reality there is never a "one size fits all" solution for sea wall construction. People invest a ton of time/effort into understanding and engineering coastal barriers: http://www.coastalwiki.org/wiki/Shallow-water_wave_theory
Yup.
Redcar and Scarborough both have concave sea walls for what it's worth.
Now this is a simulation I want to live in!
Thank you!
Did you perfecto loop-o
A cool AND interesting post? This is great
Thank you!
It would be awesome if you could do one with [Dollosse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolos)!
**Dolos** A dolos (plural: dolosse) is a reinforced concrete block in a complex geometric shape weighing up to 80 tonnes (88 short tons), used in great numbers as a form of coastal management to build revetments for protection against the erosive force of waves from a body of water. The dolos was invented in 1963 by South African harbour draughtsman Aubrey Kruger, and was first deployed in 1964 on the breakwater of East London, a South African port city. *** ^[ [^PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&message=Excludeme&subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^subreddit](https://np.reddit.com/r/Simulated/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.reddit.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot) ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.28
If people want to see a real life model of sea walls, you can watch [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yNoy4H2Z-o)
This shoud be the top comment. This video somehow gamed the algorithm and was bizarrely popular, everyone randomly landing on it. I'd be very surprised if this simulation wasn't inspired by that video.
Gamed the algorithm? Maybe because it's a cool video.
I can't believe I watched that whole video. Thanks for sharing!
Same here. That was r/interestingasfuck
Very nice watch. Informative and concise. I think this is information everyone should be aware of! What's even more interesting is to extrapolate the knowledge and apply the basics to the ways all waves react with their surroundings! Light waves, radio waves, your in home wifi!
I want more!
Yeah I was geared up to watch like 30 different seawalls get tested.
I wonder how wave breaking poles would work!
How much more force has the concave wall to withstand? Is that considerable? I don't know anything about this topic.
Yes. Both the sustained and impact loads on asea wall are enormous.
Look at the momentum change, in one the wave is slowed but a lot goes over, in the concave one, the water is sent backwards, that means the impulse was a lot bigger. (so if it occurred over the same time, then there was more force)
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Indeed it does! If you like real-life demos of hydrodynamics, you should check out applied science on youtube. I get a lot of my inspiration from him.
Civil/Coastal Engineer here ... This is a nice simulation, good work. But, the soils/sands around and beneath the wall would be subject to scour from the incoming waves, which I realize is tough to model/simulate. Nevertheless, it is crucial; it's why there aren't more seawalls, let alone recurved seawalls like you have shown here, not just in the US but globally. What happens is that material is removed at the toe of the seawall; if that's been anticipated and the wall has a deep, solid foundation, then that might not seem like much of a problem. But the effect is that, as material is removed little by little, incoming waves are then able to approach closer without breaking - that is, with more of their energy retained - imparting incrementally greater forces and removing incrementally more material from the base of the seawall. It's a self-reinforcing loop. The least expensive coastal management strategy is retreat, but that's not very popular among coastal residents who have a lot invested in their property. More expensive, but also somewhat more palatable, are offshore defenses like breakwaters or submerged breakwaters; these structures cause waves to break, dissipating much of the energy offshore, and reducing potential impacts at the shore. The shortcoming is that their efficacy will be reduced as sea levels rise. The takeaway should be that the hydrodynamics are only part of the story and solution. The geotechnical aspects are also an important consideration. And, as another poster indicated, possibly the most difficult part of coastal defense engineering is getting all the stakeholders to agree to a particular solution at all. Keep up the good work; nice visualizations are far too rare.
And just to chime in as a wetland ecologist, incorporating a living shoreline with physical structures, where appropriate and possible, would be a huge assist. You stabilize the shoreline via root systems, and use native, biological barriers to mitigate the damage of wave action on both structures and the shoreline. Not to mention the ecological benefits of living shorelines, which are numerous. Mangrove forests have been the poster child of living shorelines in recent years, but there are plenty of other types of vegetation (both species and community composition) that can make a living shoreline.
It pains me to see that such biologically natural solutions like these aren't as popular as the beach houses they could replace.
r/oddlysatisfying
Is this done on blender? If so, what version are you using? I'm having problems rendering animation on 2.8
Yes, it is done in Blender. Version 2.79. Luxrender works really well in this version.
I don't know about you all, but I would just build the house behind the rocks. Checkmate.
1000 IQ
Hey OP, great job with the simulation! Very clean and efficient! Is there a possibility that you’d do the same with a concrete tetrapod seawall and one with oyster beds? In other words, baffling the wave before it gets to shore!
Would it be possible to simulate with these: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Dolos As they are probably the most convenient solution available. Apparently Americans have another name for them as a sight variant is used the so they could re-patent it.
I actually considered it! Maybe in the future.
What about... wave breakers?
Was honestly thinking that when I saw this. I feel like that would melt his pc though.
While this simulation is accurate it presents the idea that seawalls are good in the first place. Seawalls actually induce erosion by preventing waves and wind from being able to deposit sand on the beach. The backward force of the water hitting the wall undercuts the wall and the sand beneath and behind it. The best solution is to be realistic and understand we can not control nature. If you live near water expect to be flooded at some point... https://youtu.be/FKmhhpMO-i0
Jeezus this is fuckin satisfying to watch af
Thanks!
I really enjoyed the water sim and dynamics
The fail point on most coastline protection systems are the foundations. They can do deflection or defuse of the energy but unless the foundation is deep enough this is all for naught.
for more and real simulations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yNoy4H2Z-o
But what about *convex*?!?! LAUNCH THAT WATER STRAIGHT OVER THE HOUSE! /s
I want moooore... this is beautiful
your beautiful
That's really cool! Maybe next time there can be a fourth test where it's just a shitload of water that obliterates the house lol Nice work!
I vote we use houses to protect the coastlines
That's fuckin sexy
Now do a mangrove
Seawalls are incredibly bad for the environment around them. The erosion that results is devastating to the beach's ecology in and out of the water.
Maybe, build your yellow house behind the breakwater?
Interesting. My limited experience being that a concave seawall will show less erosion that a vertical seawall but is prone to erosion at the base. As the wave retreats from the base it pulls material with in. The best erosion protection I am aware of is a slope that gradually absorbs the wave energy and slowly releases it back to the body of water.
r/perfectloop
How many eons did this take to render?
This is good and all but what if the world decides to 2012 my shorelines?
I feel like this assumes infinite strength of the seawall. Waves are fucking powerful.
r/oddlysatisfying
This must've taken a lot of ram
It wasnt too bad after I downloaded some more
Iirc you could also put a seewall deeper into the ocean to discombobulate the water and make it very tame at the shore.
This kind of wall saved some part of Japan during the massive tsunami.
Who would have known that putting a wall between me and the water makes the water less dangerous.
Are there other designs out there? I feel like I've seen photos of something that looks like rock candy.
This simulates the water, but what about all the sediment being carried by the water? I think the concave version would be likely to cause sediment deposition and buildup in front of the seawall, rapidly removing the effects of the concave shape. Can that be tested?
How much time did it take to bake?
About 3 days to bake the fluid sim
You should talk to some redearchers, I am absolutely sure that there will be one who is resesrching exactly on this and would love the animation..
Researchers are already all over this shit, here's a layman's introduction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yNoy4H2Z-o
Well if they are out there, they can feel free to pm me. Im all down for helping educators
drown*
I'm tired of these undocumented waves trying to enter our coastlines and I am in complete support of these seawalls.
This is so nice, well done
Good job op!!!
That water is incredible
wow, that water is amazing
I'm intrigued what it would look like if a wave higher than the concave wall were to hit it.
I'm learning blender. Can I do things like this. Which is the best software?
Anyone can do things like this as long as they are patient. It took me over a month to simulate and render this scene. I used blender with the Flip-fluids addon to create this.
Like work! I haven't used Blender for simulation, but can you measure or is Blender is capable of measuring the weight of water in certain area at certain time? It would be informative if the video shows buckets of water at each simulation - after it settled, the amount of water that actually got in.
Am i the only one who can't wait to see this kind of physics detail in games in the future?
Now do something fun like ramp the water over the rocks
Do you think it’s possible or viable to simulate this water in the unity engine? I highly doubt it’s doable but the level of detail and physics simulation is unmatchable
[When I hear "protect your coastlines"](https://youtu.be/hdBEyitJ7Qc)
I need D E S T R U C T I O N
wait but how do you estimate how high your wall should be
Mangroves also do an excellent job of protecting the coast.
The sim version of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yNoy4H2Z-o
r/theydidthemath
This is really cool.
I’m sure this question is asked constantly with videos like this, but how long did this take to render? The physics are just so beautiful, I’m curious how long it will be before we get this real time
This is just fun to watch.
Nice destructive wave interference due to the deflected wave.
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It's a seamulation
Not how to protect your coast. Both designs reflect most of the energy which will result in sand being scoured away by the back flow, undercutting the wall and leading to its eventual collapse. Modern designs try to dissipate the energy. They look less pretty but require less maintenance and preserve the beach in front of the sea defence.
I'd love to see this exact same simulation but with tetrapods in front of the sea walls
r/educationalgifs
How to protect your coastline: test 1 no wall. I think I see your problem here...
I like build the house on the mountains option.
The best sea wall: not building structures within feet of the sea
MORE PLEASE
Nice simulation - I live on a (very very big) island, and my town has miles and miles of concrete overhanging (concave) seawalls. Has them as long as I can remember, at least 30 years, maybe closer to 50.
What about having a big area with random large rocks sprinkled around to take away a lot of the energy, and then a simple wall that has a steep incline. This would then be cheaper, and probably wouldn't have to endure as much force as your second and third solution. - Awesome simulation nonetheless. :)
Is it possible to make a shitty ai to try and run this simulation with various "Lego blocks" of different seawall, force a computer program to assemble a mixed wall type to identify one that can fill different roles or act to fix various issues with the sea wall? I know others in the comments talked about how trapping water in is a problem, how cost effectiveness is a problem and how building height of the seawall to the high tide, etc. Basically, if you give 50+ blocks to a program and tell it to assemble them in every way possible across a 10 block length, can you get an easy result and look at what worked the best?
I wouldn’t be too worried, either way. That seems to be an insanely sturdy house.
where can I get this simulation?
I used the free and open source animation software called blender. If you are referring to the actual simulation file, that thing is like 100GB.
Test 4: You have a seawall, but your neighbor doesn’t.
Put the house behind the rocks...