fairfolio
Saved Projects

Use Your Head(land)! An Experiment in Shore Protection

CSEF · 2003 Earth Sciences/ Planetary Sciences/ Physical Environments

Eric W. Leidersdorf · Viewpoint School, Calabasas

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective of this project was to determine whether a man-made headland could rival the effectiveness of a groin in protecting the shoreline, but maintain a more natural setting. Methods/Materials The experiment was conducted in a 1.2 m x 2.4 m rectangular wave basin. Three tests were run: an unprotected beach, a beach with a conventional groin, and a beach with an experimental, triangular headland. The horizontal scale was 1:400 and the vertical scale was 1:80 (5:1 distorted scale). Each test consisted of 6,000 waves run in sets of 60 to prevent recirculation. The wave height was 3 cm and the period was 0.42 seconds. The water depth was 7.6 cm. The slope of the beach was 1 on 6, which equals a 1 on 30 prototype slope. To measure changes in the beach, eleven profiles were surveyed before and after each test from the back of the beach to the toe. Results The test results indicated that the groin trapped the most sand. Not many sand grains were able to pass around the end, and a large bar formed on its updrift side. However, since the groin trapped so much sand, it starved the downdrift beach. The headland did a better job of regulating sediment movement. It did not starve the downdrift beach, because it did not block as much sediment. It caused a large, symmetrical bar to develop on its updrift and downdrift sides. Conclusions/Discussion The experiment demonstrated that a man-made headland can rival the effectiveness of a groin in protecting the shoreline. Although a groin protects the beach on the updrift side, it causes erosion on the downdrift side. A headland is not as effective on the updrift side, but provides more equal protection for the entire beach.

Summary statement

This project compares the effectiveness of different methods of protecting the shoreline.

Help received

Prof. R. Wiegel (U.C. Berkeley) and Prof. W. McDougal (Univ. of Fla.) offered suggestions for literature, preliminary tests, and design of the wave basin. Mr. G.E. Hearon answered questions about the results, and provided guidance on graphing beach profiles. My father assisted in constructing the wave basin.

Awards (1)

  • Category Award

Competition history

  • CSEF 2003 Earth Sciences/ Planetary Sciences/ Physical Environments · Entry J0613

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google