Preliminary physics-engine model of dolosse interacting with one another

Abstract

A variety of armour units are used to protect breakwaters, piers and other harbour infrastructure, serving both to absorb the impact of violent seas and to reduce overtopping. A common type of armour unit is the dolos. Coastal engineers use three-dimensional physical scale models of harbours and their surrounds to design harbours and their defences, and to understand the dynamic processes around them caused by waves, tides, currents and storms. However, these models are complex, expensive and time-consuming to build and difficult to use. The authors have begun a wide-ranging project aimed at developing advanced digital image processing and analytical techniques for application to breakwater structural stability and moored ship conditions, and the development of associated numerical simulation and modelling technology. A key part is being able to model armour units (especially dolosse), their contact dynamics, and their packing. They have developed a model of dolosse within a physics engine, which they report on here