Optimal shape design of coastal structures minimizing coastal erosion

Abstract

Coastal erosion is and will be an increasing major environmental issue. We apply shape optimization techniques to the design of coastal structures such as breakwaters, groins and other innovative shapes. Actually, we compute the solution of a boundary value problem describing the water waves scattered by the structure and modify accordingly its shape, in order to minimize a pre-defined cost function taking into account the strength (energy) of the waterwaves. The optimization procedure relies on a new global semi-deterministic algorithm, able to pursue beyond local minima.