| Abstract | SmithGroupJJR undertook the design a new marina and accompanying land development at Ayia Napa, Cyprus. The marina features a 600-slip mega-yacht harbour framed by a large shoreline protection scheme comprised of wave absorbing block walls, revetments, breakwaters, and pocket beaches. Significant upland development, including two, 25-story towers and residential villas are also included in the design, with some of the new development near the sheltering breakwater. An innovative onekilometer long, low-crested breakwater with tetrapod armor and a wide rock berm was designed to protect the harbor and land development. One of the primary design goals was maintaining a crest height low enough to provide the villa owners and marina users with unobstructed views of the sea. Therefore, a key element in the design was to limit the amount of wave overtopping that could pass over the low crested structure and potentially threaten the villas, yachts, cars and people on the lee side of the breakwater. The maximum overtopping flow rate was of interest rather than the mean time-averaged flowrate, since the maximum flow rate is more closely linked to risks to people and property.
A physical model study of a revised breakwater design was carried out at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). A two-dimensional physical model of an idealized foreshore at the project site was constructed at a geometric scale of 1:42.2 in a 63m long by 1.22m wide wave flume. Scale models of two breakwater cross-sections (one in shallow water, the other in deeper water), due to the variable bathymetry, were constructed and exposed to scaled reproductions of the design-wave conditions forecast for the site. The physical model provided a good simulation of the important hydrodynamic processes influencing the stability and overtopping of the tetrapod armor layer, including nearshore wave transformation, wave breaking, wave run-up, and interstitial flows through the armor and filter layers.
The Ayia Napa breakwater is currently under construction, with approximately 50% of the breakwater constructed to date and completion expected by April 2019. Breakwater construction has been closely supervised, assuring that it meets the conditions specified by the design and observed in the physical model. The innovative double berm, low crested design approach of the Ayia Napa Marina breakwater provides a casebook example of how to achieve a harmonic, high-performance breakwater integrated with its landscape and environmental context, as well as highlighting the value of using a physical model to deal with design changes that arise during construction. |
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