Bending Vibrations of the Afsluitdijk Gates Subjected to Wave Impacts: A Comparison of two Design Methods

This paper describes a first case study of the application of a newly developed fluid-structure interaction model to the design of flood gates. The gates in the Afsluitdijk, that will be replaced in the coming years, are considered. Due to the presence of a concrete beam in front of the gates breaking wave can occur, leading to high impact pressures acting on the gate. For this case both a quasi-static approach and a more detailed semi-analytical model representing the dynamic behaviour including fluid-structure interac-tion are applied to determine the maximum deflection of the gate. Results show the capability of the model to efficiently quantify flood gate vibrations while considering the involved fluid-structure interaction. For the Afsluitdijk case this leads to a slightly lower maximum deflection of the gate, and therefore potentially al-lows a more economical design.