Core made of geotextile sand containers for rubble mound breakwaters and seawalls: Effect on armour stability and hydraulic performance

A systematic armour stability and the hydraulic performance, including wave reflection, wave transmission, experimental study in the twin-wave flumes of Leichtweiss-Institute (LWI) is performed on a geocore breakwater and a conventional rubble mound breakwater in order to comparatively determine the wave run-up and wave overtopping. The geocore breakwater consists of a core made of sand-filled geotextile containers (GSC) covered by an armour made of rock. The geocore is more than an order of magnitude less permeable than the quarry run core of a conventional breakwater. As expected, the core permeability substantially affects the armour stability on the seaside slope, the wave transmission and the wave overtopping performance. Surprisingly, however, wave reflection and hydraulic stability of the rear slope are less affected. Formulae for the armour stability and hydraulic performance of the geocore breakwater are proposed, including wave reflection, transmission, run-up and overtopping.