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Seabreaks for dampening colossal ocean waves?

Date: Mar 10, 2012

Interesting, have you read those?

admin · Guru

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admin · Guru

The ramform seastead allows to have a ship bow capable to deal with big waves combined with a neat calm water space in the stern section and keep the concept still mobile like a ship, while allowing ongoing modular building and growth in the stern section compareable to the modular island concept.

So it gets together pretty much of the best of most of the proposed seasteading concepts.

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admin · Guru

Ramform ships are relative new as a concept they started with a series of oceaographic survey ships with need to access the ocean and to tow gear in a much better way from a stable platform. (picture below Ramform Banff) but the Idea has also been comming up for yacht concepts like the WHY yacht, and has be implemented for oil/gas production platforms like the Ramform Banff.

In WW2 a Ice Island that would work as harbor and aircraft carrier in mid atlantic was proposed with that form.

. . . images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ5saH0BoSRFCK9Rc3cNmqgOdCdAtsjt5nGO2_oYmvc8QzMOGjXrQ

Finally inflatable boats have that form- so it is not really that new.

For seasteading a build along the lines of this concepts just in ramform would work fine.

. .

more about ramform floating platforms read here

pie_in_the_sky · Member

Interesting, a Ramform harbor, I've never heard that term before.

There is so many amazing ideas for Seasteading. I wish things would progress faster, though.

admin · Guru

A concept that also goes in that direction and allows a scale up from a very small start up to a gigantic city sized floating island is the Ramform Harbor it combines the quality of a ship with the qualities of a marina or a industrial harbor installation.

It also brings in a quality that has been described as modular floating island - something that starts very small and grows over time.

A ramform island of just 100m size could take a Draupner Wave over the bow without damage...

admin · Guru

Hello Pie,

No doubth if we could get a start up as big as the male lagoon or as big as Palm Dubai protecting that floating city with a artificial breakwater would be the first choice.

The problem is that nobody can come up with the funds to develop such a site and scaling it down until it fits to available budgets is not possible due to the charackter of oceanic waves.

So we need to look for solutions that are available for smaller budgets - and what comes to mind is avoinding waves by going below the water surface.

I tried to present that concept on the TSI forums - in the open ocean capeable living space bubble thread - unfortunatly the forums there suffer a lot of sidetracking so you must be pacient enough to read it all and filter out the value info.

Another concept that goes below is the Captain nemo float out but i would not really dismiss surface floating concepts for seasteads - on contrary i see them among the axes ocean colonization will develop.

Wil

pie_in_the_sky · Member

"To be protected from that kind of waves you either must float in the calm water created by a (natural or artificial) structure that is a mile long, you must put your living space suspendended 30m in the air on stilts (oil platform) - or you must create your living space a few meters below the surface."

Ah, I understand what you are saying. It may be prohibitively expensive to rely on seabreakers to dissipate those huge waves. I agree, it would probably costmillions of dollars to make a seabreak that can protect a stead against a Draupner Wave, and it might even end up being cheaper to built an elevated platform, or a sub-surface stead.

Thank you for explaining this to me.

admin · Guru

segmented breakwaters seem to be the most feasible approach - it would allow a seastead to start in a protected bay - prosper in a low wave ambient - and as economic power grows acumulate breakwater elements over time to migrate and expand out to more open water with harsher wave ambients.

A breakwater needs not necessaryly to be a rigid structure, as the example of ice fields, kelp fields, and mangroves show even small pieces if present in big number can create an important wave dampening effect.

Starting small with breakwaters is difficult as a small floating breakwater would just ride the waves like a ship and not dampen the big oceanic waves sufficiently to create a comfort zone.

The kind of breakwater you see in the picture above will dampen small and steep waves created by boat traffic in a bay quite nicley but it will have as good as cero effect on a Draupner Wave, or the big oceanic waves that can break a container ship in pieces as you see them here in the videos.

This ship exceeds 100 m in size - it still moves in the waves quite a bit - to have a breakwater create a "safe zone" in that conditions its size must be considerably bigger than the waves.

A breakwater of less size than the waves simply starts to move with the waves .... this is called "tracking waves".

To be protected from that kind of waves you either must float in the calm water created by a (natural or artificial) structure that is a mile long, you must put your living space suspendended 30m in the air on stilts (oil platform) - or you must create your living space a few meters below the surface.

So the question is - what is the most economic way to get protected?

pie_in_the_sky · Member

What if you started small, with a 50' diameter circle, or about 160' perimeter wave break?

You are an expert in concrete, do you think it would be prohibitively expensive to build 160' of these in concrete (except about twice the size)?:

http://wavebraakker.com/

admin · Guru

given the propotions of the picture with the 10m sailing yacht it woud be (at least) some 20m wide and a mile long....easy to paint...but hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete to build...

It is no question that this is feasible - the question is how do you finance it...by renting floating rights in the calm water to boats? - how much would a day in this "marina box" cost? - how would the cost of parking in such a structure compete with parking your boat in a natural bay or lagoon where the breakwater comes free with no building and maintenance cost at all ...

The base question is how can i stabilize a cubic meter of living space in open sea to create a acceptable permanent living comfort at a minimum cost - and i would say floating breakwaters may not be the most economic and easiest to build answer.

They work well on a mega scale for oceanic cities - but the required building volume is just too much for a small scale start up.

-- Edited by admin on Tuesday 6th of December 2011 03:24:40 PM

pie_in_the_sky · Member

Well, I see that floating breakwaters have already been discussed in much detail at TSI:

http://seasteading.org/blogs/engineering/2010/12/17/costs-floating-breakwaters

I will need to spend some time reading those threads.

pie_in_the_sky · Member

Hi again,

Well, not convinced a breakwater would require so much work to create.

I did a Google search on "floating breakwater" and I see lots of ideas, including this:

Breakwater_index.htm

http://www.noort-innovations.nl/Breakwater_index.htm

That doesn't look obscenely expensive to me.

And if you used a dual ring of these, you could make it extremely effective. I made a quick drawing here:

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1gZTKbW2cpwBkk_3EScT8_OpY3woAkQfCBpl-DgeHurg/edit?hl=en_US

-- Edited by pie_in_the_sky on Tuesday 6th of December 2011 03:00:26 PM

admin · Guru

I agree completly - if people ask me how a "seastead" will look like i would say that whatever the owner wants it to look. Current commercial models are known as yachts, houseboats, but unconvential models like totora islands in lake titicaca and richi sowas bottle island also can be seen as early seastead models. No need to come up with a "fit for all concept".

I agree with you that if you take out the wave hazard in a sea area by enclosing it in a floating breakwater you enable basicly anything that floats for seasteading.

But still building a floating breakwater of "village size" is a enormous building volume... two pieces like the monaco breakwater hinged together in triangular form, pointing the tip against the waves like a ship bow would do the job ... but still not easy to achieve - one piece is 160.000 tons of building volume....

This floating piece actually protects the harbor of Monaco (which has the size of a village) from ocean waves ... it contains a parkhouse and a shopping mall. And it offers along side docking for 4 cruiseships (two on the outer side, two on the inner side.)

The key question is how small can a breakwater be to be still effective and the general answer is not below hundred meters... because it would just start to move with the waves instead of breaking them...

monaco floating breakwater

monaco floting breakwater video

pie_in_the_sky · Member

Fantastic photos, thank you for posting those.

***

To continue with my main thought, I think the focus on the size/shape of the living areas is not the proper way forward. The outer sea break is the way forward.

My personal study of free-markets has convinced me that when people are allowed to own property and are able to invest in free-markets then companies come up with amazingly creative and diverse ideas. This free-market innovation is something you can basically predict occuring, although you can't tell what it will look like.

If a sea break were constructed which (1) could repel 100' wave and (2) enclosed an area the size of a small village, then I would anticipate that free-market innovation would advance very quickly. The interior surface area of the sea break circle would be filled by an amazing assortment of habitable units.

Do they need to look the same? No, of course not. Some inhabitants will want a modest sized dwelling, and some will want a floating palace. Some will want a concrete structure, some will prefer aluminum. Etc. It's not up to us to figure out what to build, let inhabitants create and hire companies to do this thinking and building for us.

In short, there isn't a real need to determine what is the 'best' living platform for living on the ocean--the free-market will do that for us. All that is needed is create an area and invite individuals from around the world to populate it.

admin · Guru

nice concept - i would see it in the concept of a plate seastead or a stadion seastead

If making it a bit mor elongated it could even move like a big ship...

. .

I have actually done some model testing to set the bases for a family version of a plate seastead built in concrete shell...

. images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRTNsxR2OilC2pWjOFJTO_kTU1FCm-X3j2es4TfmUjn7637ElTG

it could be something like this one - see a video of this here

Wil

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pie_in_the_sky · Member

Hi admin,

'Artifiical lagoon' led me to search Google for more examples in addition to the one you mentioned.

While I was searching, I found this article for a floating city which looks gorgeous. Have you seen this?:

http://www.gizmag.com/lilypad-floating-city-concept/17697/

admin · Guru

Hello Pie,

Welcome and thanks for starting this thread...

In fact exactly this is what the devolpers of Palm Dubai had in mind - a artificial lagoon. The underlaying problem with a floating breakwater is that it should dampen all ocean waves. As ocean waves can have wavelenght of more than 100m and you need a structure that is several times wavelenght size to get the desired complete calm lagoon even a small version of a breakwater lagoon needs hundred(s) of meter of structure.

So that is no small scale project. Basicly to get the wave breaking effect of a reef you need to build a reef - and that is a major building volume. The Monaco breakwater has done this successfully.

Another example is the breakwater of the ekofisk oil storage tank.

If you have seen the film waterworld you remember probably the lagoon set - this was actually a floating ring lagoon that was set up in 6 segments in Hawaii .

Some other designs for floating breakwater lagoon solutions...

. . images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSaR5Mm9X6GleYz71yoUNAx8MET20rj8V-mroXsZk17u5Fs7nPh . . floating%20breakwater%20greece.jpg . .

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pie_in_the_sky · Member

No, not an underwater break. I mean a surface break, that can protect the interior from large waves.

u-boatdreams · Veteran Member

pie-in-the-sky, are u talking about a barrier underwater to allow the building of a subsurface home?--an underwater breakwater would not be needed below the surface...sorry if i misunderstood-just read this one post from this particular subject...

pie_in_the_sky · Member

I imagine that if wave breaks are built in a large circle on the ocean surface, then the interior concrete structures don't need to be so robust. This could save a lot of money, and create a more tranquil place to live.

a seawall, which allows inhabitants to build in safety:

.

Pictures: / Palm Dubai/

I think if the seabreak was built, then quite a few sea steaders (and yachters) would come out of the woodwork to inhabit it. Similar to 'if you build it, they will come'. People would purchase their own seasteading dwelling and ship it to the location, I think. In short, a seasteading community can be jump started by a seasteading developer by making a safe and secure seabreak somewhere out in the ocean.

Are there any designs for deep sea seabreaks on this site?

Concrete Floating Structures

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The axes of ocean colonization / floating real estate building lots on the water / Plate Seastead - Plate Floating Element for Ocean Colonization / Catamaran Concrete Floating Elements - Base for Ocean Living / Floating Concrete Breakwater Marina / Ocean colonization how to get there / Ramform ship island as ocean base mobile stable scaleable / small honeycomb floating concrete structures in cartagena / Seabreaks for dampening colossal ocean waves / Ocean colonization technology / Ocean colonization company / Oustanding floating concrete structures / ocean colonization general considerations / Interesting projects for ocean colonization / Aquaculture, business, trade, mininig, energy, salvage, making money afloat /

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