Seawalls, SEACON, and Sustainability in the Sunshine State

Florida was an early adopter of concrete seawalls and bulkheads in sheltered marine environments. The sunshine state land and housing booms of the 1920's, 1950's and 1960's led to extensive development of coastal and estuarine waterfront as property speculators attempted to maximize boating access, water views and escalate property values. Government environmental regulations in the 1970's hampered much of the unimpeded expansion, but not before an estimated 3,600 miles (5,800 km) of reinforced and prestressed concrete seawall armored the coastline of Florida. The current legacy of these events in combination with the extremely aggressive subtropical environment is a tremendous maintenance and replacement liability since many of these structural systems have aged beyond their original design life. The major share of this liability will be borne by private property owners (estimated at 80%), but the solution could effectively be guided by the collaboration of government, academia and private commercial industry. The limited understanding of the durability limits of these systems at the time of installation also necessitates a different approach for investment of future resources. A research collaboration project (SEACON) is exploring an alternate approach which could be applied as part of the solution to this challenge. The SEACON project seeks to present and refine the application of advancements in materials technology that can be effectively exploited from durability, economic and sustainability aspects. Primarily focused on fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite and stainless-steel reinforcing in combination with seawater concrete and recycle concrete aggregate, the SEACON research team is collaborating with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and Italian transportation agency counterparts. Field demonstrations of real world structures, including seawalls utilizing these components have been constructed, documented and are under continual monitoring as part of both the SEACON project, and FDOT's Transportation Innovation initiative. Complementary to this effort the FDOT has developed FRP and SS prestressed concrete standards for broader deployment of bridge piling, seawall sheet piling and bulkhead cap construction and replacement. This paper presents a summary of past efforts and a vision moving forward which could be applicable to many coastal communities worldwide.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AFF80 Standing Committee on Structural Fiber Reinforced Polymers.
• Authors:
  • Nolan, Steven
  • Rossini, Marco
  • Nanni, Antonio
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2018-1-7 to 2018-1-11
• Date: 2018

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Photos; References;
• Pagination: 13p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bulkheads (Hydraulics); Composite materials; Fiber reinforced polymers; Sustainable development
• Identifier Terms: SEACON
• Uncontrolled Terms: Seawalls
• Geographic Terms: Florida
• Subject Areas: Bridges and other structures; Marine Transportation; Materials;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01660332
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 18-05568
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 20 2018 9:27AM