Hazard analysis of dynamically loaded caisson breakwaters

Probabilistic analysis, based on the final outcomes of the European research project PROVERBS, Oumeraci et al. 2000a, is applied to two example cases: Genoa Voltri main breakwater (Italy) and Easchel breakwater, a fictitious case combining Eastern Scheldt Storm Surge Barrier (the Netherlands) for the subsoil and Gela breakwater (Italy) for the rest. Sliding induced by non-breaking, impact or broken waves is the discussed failure mechanism. A calibrated 1 degree of freedom dynamic model, easy to use in a probability based design process, is adopted for the evaluation of the force transferred to the foundation by impacts. For both example cases, realistic results were obtained also thanks to some attention on me choice of congruous statistics