Towards shared tools for the design of coastal infrastructure

Coastal Design Support (CoDeS) tools are relatively simple software tools aimed to support engineers in the design of coastal engineering solutions and the communication towards clients and stakeholders. The tools provide quick insights in orders of magnitude of environmental conditions and impacts of human interventions. This way they help to arrive at promising solution directions during an early stage of a project. Bringing CoDeS tools together in one software environment enables engineers to use and improve the same knowledge base in order to increase the efficiency of projects and promote the integration between different disciplines. Moreover, an easy to use General User Interface (GUI) makes them accessible for a wide range of users (e.g. project engineers, managers, reviewers).

Following a successful JIP CoDeS Pilot, Royal HaskoningDHV, Witteveen+Bos and Deltares continued the Joint Industry Project (JIP) with CoDeS 1.0.

Figure 1: CoDeS tool to quickly assess alongshore sediment transport rates at the coast.

Objectives

The objectives of JIP CoDeS 1.0, following the developments made within the JIP CoDeS Pilot, are defined as follows:

1. to extend the CoDeS tools within the Delta Shell framework in terms of functionality, uniformity, interactivity and number of tools available
2. to continue the joint creation of an easily accessible platform for the exchange and dissemination of CoDeS tools and knowledge within
3. to further grow the active community of developers (and users) amongst the different partners
4. to build a showcase (case study) to interest potential future partners and clients, while showcasing all CoDeS 1.0 capabilities

These objectives support the stimulation of demand driven R&D and knowledge dissemination through easy-to-use CoDeS tools.

Methodology

A team of coastal engineers, programmers and managers (product owners) from the three JIP partners work together on tool development in sprint sessions following a SCRUM alike methodology, following the positive feedback on such methodology from the CoDeS pilot. Each sprint session has a clear scope and clear roles and responsibilities for the team. During the sprint sessions engineers and programmers use scripting (Iron Python and C#) to program CoDeS tools and link them to the Delta Shell user interface to make them easily accessible to the user community. A supporting generic data framework is setup during the first JIP CoDeS sprint session, in order to support uniformity, integration and interactivity throughout the different CoDeS tool developments.

Progress

JIP CoDeS 1.0 is divided in two sepate sets of a number of sprint sessions, each followed by a demo of the present status to both the product owners and advisory board. Within these demos feedback is provided in order to steer subsequent developments. The following CoDeS demos are part of JIP CoDeS 1.0:

• February 12, 2016
• April 13, 2016

Following the second demo, a 'bug fixing' sprint session is planned, in which minor bugs encountered during the second demo are resolved, as well as further 'quick wins' implemented towards product finalization.

Product

The envisioned product is a uniform GUI containing tools for:

• handling generic data uniformly available for the different CoDeS tools
  • bathymetry data import
  • wave data import and classification
  • defining structures, a coastline and other spatial variables
  • wave transformation based on linear wave theory
  • tidal data import and calculation of tidal characteristics (Figure 3)
• alongshore sediment transport rate calculations (Figure 1)
• coastline evolution as a consequence of alongshore sediment transport gradients, as well as human interventions
• flow field prediction along a predefined harbour design
• breakwater design, optimization and (cost) quantification (Figure 2)
• wave penetration (short crested) within a harbour design

Within the GUI users can manually specify or load data in simple ASCII formats or import data from global data sources - if no site-specific data is available. Based on the data, users can perform simple analyses and apply empirical engineering formulae. The results are shown in a unified map, graph or table, which the user can export as images for reporting purposes. The product forms a strong basis and a wide range of opportunities for future tool developments.

The JIP CoDeS 1.0 final product is still under development and features an embargo until April 2017. The zip version will be made available through this website as soon as the embargo is lifted. 

Process

Working together in sprints using a SCRUM alike methodology was found to provide a very productive, constructive and pleasant working experience during the CoDeS pilot, and is therefore again used JIP CoDeS 1.0. In order to streamline CoDeS software development in a professional manner, the software development tool JIRA was introduced in the proceedings starting with the second set of sprint sessions following demo 1.

Planning

By the end of April 2016, developments are planned to consolidate in a final JIP CoDeS 1.0 product, featuring the different tools described above.

Parties that are interested to use the tools or participate in future cooperation and development can contact Mr. Wiebe de Boer (wiebe.deboer@deltares.nl) or Mr. Freek Scheel (freek.scheel@deltares.nl).

Figure 2: CoDeS tool to assist in the design of breakwaters.

Figure 3: CoDeS tool calculating the tidal statistics at the project location.