Proposal on Hybrid Design Method of Outer Port Facilities Using Failure Probability

Lately, many efforts have been made to address the problem concerned with deterministic design using reliability-based design, and the research results are significant. However, there is considerable confusion in the design practice regarding how to use failure probability, the main output of reliability-based design. In this rationale, this study aims to develop a robust hybrid deterministic design method for outer port facilities using the failure probability. To this end, we first reviewed the design process of Eulleungdo East Breakwater, some of which were recently damaged. It was revealed that the exceeding probability of design wave height of 5.2 m was merely 0.65, which corresponds to a return period of 1.53 years, showing that the outer port facilities of Ulleungdo were considerably underdesigned. In an effort to find an alternative that can overcome the limitations of the deterministic design method, which is highly likely to involve subjective judgment, a Level III reliability design was carried out. In doing so, tri-modal Gaussian wave slope distribution was used as a probabilistic model for wave slope. Numerical results show that failure probability was excessively estimated in the Gaussian distribution, and even if the TTP size was slightly reduced, the failure probability increased rapidly. Although failure probability is sensitive to the change in nominal diameter, there is a gradually increasing zone where the failure probability change rapidly decreases when the nominal diameter is larger than the critical value. The presence of a Gradually Increasing Zone mentioned above implies that it is uneconomical and has no physical background to adjust the nominal diameter to be larger than the critical value. Therefore, it can be easily conceived that outer port facility design should be performed using a failure probability provided by Level III reliability-based design.