Publications

Storms impacting sandy coastal areas produce hazard such as erosion as overwash, in turn, promote risk to life and property damage in occupied areas.

Methodologies to be used in numerical models based on Reynolds-averaged Navier

With the sea level rise and all the processes associated with wave action.

É cada vez mais usual o recurso à modelação numérica para a simulação de eventos de galgamento, inundação e erosão em zonas costeiras. Neste estudo, recorre-se ao acoplamento de dois modelos, SWAN + XBeach (modo surf beat), para a propagação da agitação marítima do largo até à zona de espraio e para reproduzir a evolução morfodinâmica, a fim de avaliar a ocorrência de galgamento e erosão resultantes de eventos meteo-oceanográficos extremos. O local de estudo incide sobre o sector urbano artificializado da Costa da Caparica, que é composto por um campo de esporões e uma estrutura de proteção aderente em toda a extensão, formando seis células de praia arenosa. As simulações cobriram 96 h de forçamentos oceanográficos, representando, assim, a passagem da tempestade Hércules/Christine, entre os dias 3 e 7 de janeiro de 2014. O modelo SWAN propagou com sucesso as condições de agitação marítima para a área de estudo, quando comparado com os dados registados pela boia do Porto de Lisboa. Em relação ao modelo XBeach, este foi capaz de reproduzir alguma da evolução morfodinâmica espectável, contudo a erosão da praia emersa ficou aquém dos relatos documentados, não tendo sido possível avaliar quantitativamente os resultados. O alcance máximo do espraio obtido ao longo deste troço de costa foi inferior ao documentado, o que induz a falhas na previsão de inundações devido ao galgamento. Estes resultados podem ser devidos a uma parametrização inadequada do modelo e/ou à falta de levantamentos topo-batimétricos da praia. Esta abordagem metodológica representa um passo importante para uma melhor estimativa da evolução morfodinâmica na Costa da Caparica devido a eventos de tempestade e significa um importante esforço inicial para melhorar a avaliação dos eventos de galgamento e inundação.

O HIDRALERTA é um sistema de avaliação, previsão e alerta do risco da ocorrência de situações de emergência associadas aos efeitos da agitação marítima (galgamento, inundação e navios amarrados) em zonas costeiras e portuárias. Sendo um sistema de alerta, é fundamental que funcione corretamente, quer em situações correntes (apenas emitindo alertas quando tal se justifique), quer em situações de tempestade. Neste trabalho são apresentados os desenvolvimentos efetuados até à data na validação do sistema em situações de tempestade, com a sua aplicação na simulação do furacão Lorenzo e das depressões Elsa e Fabien. Da análise efetuada pode concluir-se que os alertas emitidos pelo sistema estiveram em oncordância com os danos/ocorrências reportadas localmente, o que contribui para reforçar a confiança no sistema que está a ser desenvolvido. A característica diferenciadora deste trabalho é que a avaliação do risco é efetuada com base nos parâmetros específicos do risco que se pretende prever, como caudais de galgamento ou as forças nas amarrações, e não apenas em parâmetros meteorológicos e oceanográficos.

The effects of a farm of bottom-fixed oscillating flaps on the wave propagation in Almagreira beach (Portugal) are evaluated. The SNL-SWAN (Sandia National Laboratories, Simulating WAves Nearshore) numerical model is validated from 2010 to 2018 against Nazaré wave buoy data and run for 19 years to characterize the wave resource and identify the most common and energetic sea states. By varying number (10 to 100) and configuration of wave energy converters (WECs) an optimal array is identified. Model sensitivity to two methods of determining the transmission coefficient, OBCASEs 1 and 3, is studied by analyzing changes in significant wave height, period and direction. OBCASE 1 overestimates the effects of the farm on the waves and changes result higher in the lee of the array with an increasing number of devices. As a future work OBCASE 2 and 4 will be compared to OBCASE 1 and 3.

Climate change studies already reported sea level rise as an accepted scenario, which induces changes in nearshore wave conditions. A large range of new experiences including water level, run-up, overtopping, hydrodynamic data for different wave steepnesses and directions was performed in the Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH) wave basin for a rubble mound breakwater with a slope of 1(V):2(H). This work presents, focusing on oblique extreme wave conditions, numerical simulations of the hydrodynamics in that experiment using OpenFOAM®. Results of the wave generation boundary conditions and their propagation, namely levation of the water level free-surface and velocity data at specific locations are compared and discussed with data from experimental measurements acquired by acoustic wave gauges and acoustic doppler velocimeter (ADV) / Vectrino equipment. Although an exact match between numerical and laboratory values was not reached, an appropriate incident wave angle and a reasonable amplitude of velocities and water depths was achieved and the same happened to the statistics of those values.

Para caracterizar a resposta de um trecho do quebra-mar de taludes do porto da Ericeira à agitação marítima nele incidente, realizaram-se no canal de ondas irregulares do LNEC um conjunto de ensaios com um modelo reduzido desse mesmo trecho. Nesta comunicação descreve-se a instalação experimental, incluindo os diversos instrumentos utilizados para medir as séries temporais das várias grandezas de interesse e o programa de ensaios, apresentando-se as grandezas medidas num subconjunto dos ensaios considerado mais interessante. Nestas grandezas incluem-se a elevação da superfície livre associada à agitação incidente, o espraiamento ao longo do talude, o volume de água de água galgado, a pressão em vários pontos da superestrutura e a erosão do manto protetor utilizando um sensor cujo funcionamento se baseia na tecnologia Time of Flight.

Nowadays, renewable energy is a topic widely discussed in scientific community. Specifically wave energy attracts attention because it has a high energy potential distributed throughout the planet. Oscillating Water Column (OWC) wave energy converter is one of the most studied devices that have promising perspectives to be installed commercially. This study aims investigating the influence of chamber sizes and turbine characteristics dimensions of an OWC device located at the southern Brazilian coast is carried out. Numerical simulations for incident waves with period T = 7 s and 10 s and height H = 1.5 m, by using the FLUENT® model, based on the finite volume method (VFM) are carried out. Efficiencies for different chamber sizes and Wells turbine characteristic relations (kt) in each incident wave are determined. The highest efficiencies were obtained by a chamber with 5 x 5 m and kt = 530 Pa.s/m³ in the case of an incident wave with T = 7s (52%), and 30 x 30 m and kt = 15 Pa.s/m³ at T = 10s (65%).

Port terminals downtimes lead to large economic losses and largely affect the port

This paper describes the physical model, experimental setup and tests performed to study the motions and forces of a ship moored to the pier A at the Leixões oil terminal, following the breakwater

HIDRALERTA is a forecast, early warning and risk assessment system for port and coastal areas that uses measurements and estimates of sea-waves and water levels to evaluate overtopping/flooding events. The calculation of the mean overtopping discharge over a maritime structure is performed through artificial neural network-based tools and/or empirical formulae. The system is developed in open source software, mainly using the Python language. This paper presents the application of HIDRALERTA system to reproduce the hurricane Lorenzo conditions and impacts at Lajes das Flores port on October 2nd 2019, the most affected port in Azores. This hurricane was regarded as the strongest storm to hit Azores in 20 years. The system predicted the expected results for the hurricane wave characteristics, as well as overtopping discharge volumes. Further validation still need to be improved with the collaboration of the local authorities and the use of historical data.

Numerical models are useful tools to predict the effects of storms in coastal areas. The objective of this work was to simulate the effects of storms in São Pedro de Moel beach by using XBeach. The nearshore sea state was obtained by propagating offshore conditions using the SWAN model. The XBeach model was divided into two setups to analyse overtopping events and coastal evolution. Sensibility tests, calibration, and validation, using information from different storms, were performed for the different setups. The results from the overtopping simulation were compared against results from an empirical formula. The comparison showed lower values obtained with the empirical formula. The coastal evolution run point out to the necessity of having better field data before and after storms to improve the model setting and accuracy.

The assessment of damage evolution in scale model tests of rubble-mound breakwaters can be achieved by comparing eroded depths and volumes between consecutive surveys. This paper focuses on damage evolution of a model of a rubble-mound breakwater and on the novelty of the non-intrusive survey methodologies such as laser scanning and Time of Flight (ToF) techniques, based on point clouds, enabling the extraction of profiles and the calculation of eroded depths and eroded volumes. The final objective of this work is to evaluate the applicability of the estimation the number of displaced armour units, using a non-dimensional damage parameter based on the calculated eroded volume.The paper will also describe the experiments conducted under the RODBreak, a project sponsored by the HYDRALAB+ Transnational Access Program, in which a stretch of a rubble-mound breakwater was built at the wave-current basin of the Leibniz University Hannover (LUH) to assess the structure behavior. Four scan surveys were conducted using a Faro Focus 3D laser scan, as well as a ToF sensor. Those surveys were carried out before and after two test series, in order to evaluate the eroded volume and profile evolution.

Neste trabalho é efetuada a validação do protótipo To-SEAlert para o porto da Ericeira. Para a validação dos resultados do modelo SWAN foram utilizados os dados de duas boias situadas ao largo da Nazaré e para a validação das previsões do sistema de cálculo do grau de risco foram simuladas as depressões Elsa e Fabien (ocorridas em dezembro de 2019) e que foram responsáveis por fortes danos na cabeça do molhe do porto da Ericeira. Verificou-se uma boa concordância entre os dados das boias e os resultados do modelo SWAN, tendo no entanto o modelo reproduzido melhor a direção média e a altura significativa do que o período de pico. Relativamente aos valores de galgamento, os resultados obtidos na simulação das depressões Elsa e Fabien estiveram em concordância com os valores referidos na literatura como causadores de danos nas estruturas.

This work aims to determine the exploitable wave energy resource at six potential sites, located in the Azores, Madeira and Sines breakwater city harbours. For that purpose, the thirdgeneration wave model SWAN is used to estimate the sea-wave conditions over the last 40 years. Boundary conditions of the sea states and wind fields are provided by the climate reanalysis datasets (ERA5). Using those results as inputs to the SWAN model, the sea-states were propagated shoreward, in order to estimate and analyse the wave climate conditions in the regions of interest. By combining the average energy flux per unit-length of wave front and the probability of occurrence of each sea state, the average exploitable annual energy per unit length of wave crest can be computed. The variability of this energy flux is described, since it is of fundamental importance for the efficiency of the Wave Energy Converters (WEC).

Former investigations on wave run-up and overtopping of (impermeable and permeable) coastal structures aimed at quantifying the influence of oblique waves on mean overtopping discharge, water layer thickness and velocities by developing empirical formulas of a reduction factor for wave obliquity,

In 2017, the RODBreak experiment was conducted. The experiment aimed at characterizing wave run-up, overtopping and damage in rubble-mound breakwaters. The reason for these experiments was the huge impact that climate can have on maritime structures, particularly in rubble mound breakwaters. In fact, the forecast sea level rise associated with more frequent and severe storms will have consequences either on the increase of wave runup, wave overtopping or on damage on existent structures since they were not design for those extreme values. However, for those climate change scenarios, little is known about the actual failure probability of such structures.Within this framework, a stretch of a rubble-mound breakwater was built in a wave basin. Under extreme wave conditions, with different incident wave angles (from 40° to 90°), a total of 49 tests were performed. Each test had different testing parameters, such as significant wave height (Hs), peak period (Tp) and wave direction. Also, for each test, different types of measurements were considered. Incident sea waves were measured with 3 arrays of 6 acoustic wave probes each as well as with isolated acoustic wave probes and 5 Acoustic Doppler Velocimeters (ADV

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