Shore Protection Modeling: Portable Breakwaters on the Southeast Coastline of Nantucket, MA

This project was conducted to test the feasibility of  using a portable breakwater design to treat shore erosion along a segment of the south coast of Nantucket Island. The patented Resolve Marine shore protection modules are of concrete construction that can be flooded and submerged along an eroding shoreline to prevent wave attack and impound sand from the littoral transport. Circulation of sediment and topographic changes along the southeast coast of Nantucket were simulated using the Coastal Modeling System (CMS) developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineering Research Development Center (ERDC). CMS is a physics-based model of waves, flow, sediment transport, and morphological change. CMS was applied in this project to predict the performance of the Resolve Marine Modules located in the nearshore zone to reduce wave energy propagating to the shoreline. CMS-Wave calculated spectral wave propagation across the model grid. In this project, the full Coastal Modeling System included coupling of CMS-WAVE with CMS-FLOW. The combination of these two components of CMS was used to predict the performance of the modules to reduce shore erosion and accumulate sand in the erosion hot spots along the southeast Coast of Nantucket. Model tests included several arrangements of the Resolve Marine Modules including segmented and shore parallel continuous configurations..