Stability of jetties for channel protection in soft soils at Huanghua Port

This paper presents safety evaluations of jetties found on soft clays at Huanghua Port to protect the channel from deposition due to long shore transport. It is likely to be the most critical for the jetties during construction, as far as excess pore water pressure and its effects on the embankment stability are concerned. A rubble mound jetty and a caisson jetty are considered as design alternatives for comparison. Finite element analysis and limit equilibrium analysis are carried out to evaluate the stability of the jetties during construction. For the rubble mound jetty, effective stresses in the soft clays are calculated associated with consolidation, so as to estimate the shear strength increased thereby. With the effective stresses and shear strength, the critical situation of the rubble mound jetty is revealed by the limit equilibrium analysis. For the caisson jetty, wave action is concerned, which is transformed into distributed forces on the caisson. Both the finite element analysis and the limit equilibrium analysis indicate a potential general shear failure of the caisson jetty and the foundation.