Architected materials for artificial reefs to increase storm energy dissipation

Edvard Ronglan; Alfonso Parra Rubio; Alexis Oliveira da Silva; Dixia Fan; Jeffrey L Gair Jr; Patritsia Maria Stathatou; Carolina Bastidas; Erik Strand; Jose Del Aguila Ferrandis; Neil Gershenfeld; Michael S Triantafyllou

doi:10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae101

Architected materials for artificial reefs to increase storm energy dissipation

PNAS Nexus. 2024 Mar 26;3(3):pgae101. doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae101. eCollection 2024 Mar.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
² Center for Bits and Atoms, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
³ ENSTA Paris, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Palaiseau 91120, France.
⁴ School of Engineering, Westlake University, Hangzhou 310024, China.
⁵ Scinetics, Inc., Abingdon, MA 21009, USA.
⁶ Renewable Bioproducts Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA.
⁷ Sea Grant College Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

Abstract

Increasing extreme weather events require a corresponding increase in coastal protection. We show that architected materials, which have macroscopic properties that differ from those of their constituent components, can increase wave energy dissipation by more than an order of magnitude over both natural and existing artificial reefs, while providing a biocompatible environment. We present a search that optimized their design through proper hydrodynamic modeling and experimental testing, validated their performance, and characterized sustainable materials for their construction.

Keywords: architected reefs; drag amplification; porous body hydrodynamics; wave energy dissipation.