SEISMIC STABILITY OF CAISSON TYPE BREAKWATER

Abstract

In recent two decades, more and more marine structures, such as breakwater, bridge, oil platform and turbines are constructed on seabed in offshore area. The stability of these marine structures after construction under the environmental loading is the main concern for the coastal engineers involved in the design work. Generally, there are two types of environmental loading in offshore area. One of them is the ocean wave and the other is the possible earthquake. Ocean wave is the conventional loading for all marine structures. However, little attention and investigation has been paid for the second type of environmental loading-seismic wave and conducted in the previous literatures. In this study, an experimental study was carried out for the stability of caisson type breakwater located on a firm bed condition under regular harmonic seismic wave. The results obtained from this experimental study were also used for the verification of the newly modified sliding block analysis model.