Structural continuity: Key to improved performance on pontoon piers and breakwaters

A long continuous and rigid floating structure distributes local wave and live load effects over a large area. As a result, movements of the structure are reduced, savings are achieved in anchoring, and wave breaking properties are improved compared to traditional discontinuous solutions. Methods to compute the structural response, force distribution and anchor forces of these continuous and fairly rigid systems are developed, based among other things on model tests. The nonlinear hydrodynamic damping is shown to play a key role in achieving realistic results. A structural system based on steel hollow sections with simple bolted connections is described. The performance of this system has been monitored on full scale in storm and ship-generated waves. Measured response records are in good agreement with simulated ones. The wavebreaking properties were been similar to those expected on the basis of model tests.