A Joint Hydraulic/Structural Methodology for the Rehabilitation of the Crescent City Marina

To date, proper design guidelines and codes are somewhat incomplete with respect to addressing natural coastal hazards such as tsunamis in the design of marine projects. This paper illustrates how a way forward was devised by specifically elaborating on tsunami-induced loads within the context of the Crescent City marina rehabilitation. Specifically, the methodology implemented herein focuses on defining a set of reasonable design hydrodynamic loads for floating and fixed structures in the Crescent City harbor. This task is part of an on-going master plan initiated after the 2006 Kuril Island tsunami. The technical focus is on establishing the direct effects of a tsunami wave upon moored vessels, floats, and pilings. The purpose is to mitigate tsunami damage by adequately designing all constitutive elements of the rehabilitated marina. This analysis is at the interface between large-scale models of tsunami propagation and the need of marine structural designers for robust loading constraints. To do so, a Boussinesq model is deployed. An overview of the results gathered from the numerical simulations is presented, along with a summary of structural solutions retained to mitigate future damage. More broadly, the work and analysis described in this paper show that the application of a judiciously parameterized conventional numerical model is capable of delivering readily-useable loads that are in good agreement with observed eyewitness measurements of tsunami action. In doing so, we hope to show that the inclusion of tsunami loads within design codes can be achieved efficiently.