Optimization of coastal structures: Application on detached breakwaters in ports

An optimization approach using Genetic Algorithms (GA) has been developed to determine the optimal layout of detached breakwaters inports subject to wave disturbance and navigational constraints. It aims to modify the shape and location of detached breakwater to achieve an optimal solution. This approach constitutes an advanced step in the design of coastal structures compared to conventional methods. The detached breakwater is parameterized by the coordinates of its nodes which constitute the variables of the optimization problem. The initial population is randomly generated inside a defined search space to ensure large consideration of various potential solutions. Mutation with random generation has been included at each iteration to renew the worse individuals and enrich the GA with new solutions. One and two segment breakwaters have been considered and compared. This optimization approach has been performed for the Port of Beirut as a real engineering application for two cases: simplified and real bathymetry. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.