ARTICLE IN PRESS

Ocean Engineering 34 (2007) 510–517

www.elsevier.com/locate/oceaneng

Bed changes at toe of inclined seawalls

Mousa S. El-Bisy
Civil Engineering Department, College of Engineering and Islamic Architecture, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA, Saudi Arabia
Received 4 October 2005; accepted 22 February 2006
Available online 14 July 2006

Abstract

This study was carried out to investigate the scour phenomenon at the toe of seawalls and the different parameters that affected it.
Experiments were achieved using different wave steepnesses, bed material grain sizes, wall positions and inclinations. Based on
experimental results, the parametric plots of toe scour for smooth impermeable inclined seawalls were prepared. Also, this paper presents
the bed changes prediction at seawalls toe using artificial neural networks on the basis of experimental data to widen the range of
application. Suitability of using a neural network model was developed, and a model was validated. It is proposed that this model can be
used in coastal engineering applications.
r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Seawall toe; Bed change; Scour; Surf zone; Wave steepness; Crown level; Forecasting; Neural networks

1. Introduction some aspects of the flow characteristics and wave attack on

Seawalls are the most secure form of coastal defense
because they provide a physical and often substantial
barrier between the land and the sea. This perception of
increased security, however, needs to be balanced against
the environmental problems which can be caused by their
use.
Seawall impacts occur in front, at the ends, and behind
the wall, and encompass sediments, cliffs, and ecology. All
of these areas need to be considered in order to undertake a
complete assessment of the role of seawalls in coastal
defense (French, 2001). Tait and Griggs (1990) claim to
have identified a series of commonly observed phenomena
on beaches fronting seawalls. In essence, all observations
related to the reflection of waves from the structure, and
the interaction of these reflected waves with incoming
waves and the beach.
On the laboratory scale, it has been demonstrated that a
seawall does not always produce erosion when introduced
in the active wave zone of a beach in equilibrium with the
existing waves (Dorland, 1940; Chestnutt and Schiller,
1971; Hattori and Kawamata, 1977). Kadib (1963) studied
Tel.: +966500518353; fax: +96625270027.
E-mail address: m_elbisy@uqu.edu.sa.
beaches. The effect of vertical wall top elevation, bed
material, and different wave scale ratios were also
investigated. Kadib found that the smallest scour in front
of the wall was observed when the top elevation of the wall
was at a half-wave height below the still water level.
However this condition gave the largest attack on the area
behind the wall. El-Fiky et al. (1990) studied the effect of
the existence of seawalls on bed change at the toe using
different wave steepnesses and wall slopes (451 and 901
seawall).
Komar (1998) shows that the wave height is a function of
the water depth in front of the seawall. There is a complex
relationship between waves and scour, at different water
depths, waves with the same properties can have vastly
different impacts on the beach sediment (Weggel, 1988).
Chestnutt and Schiller (1971) found that maximum
erosion occurred if the seawall was placed on the
equilibrium beach in a critical region lying from about
0.5–0.67 of the width of the surf zone. Chestnutt and
Schiller pointed out that the surf-zone width depends on
the wave period. Kraus (1988) points out that the scour
tends to be a greater problem the further the wall is built
out into the surf zone.
Recently, the artificial neural networks (ANNs) have
been successfully used to overcome the problem of

0029-8018/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.oceaneng.2006.02.006
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
M.S. El-Bisy / Ocean Engineering 34 (2007) 510–517
Nomenclature
CL seawall crown level
d water depth
D bias value
H wave height
L wave length
H/L wave steepness
On bed change at seawall toe observations
Pn bed change at seawall toe predictions
exclusive and the nonlinear relationships. For example, in
coastal engineering, Dong and Woo (2005) applied the
ANNs to the design of the rubble mound breakwaters.
Anurag and Deo (2003) used the feed forward as well as
recurrent networks to forecast wind speed. ANNs models
have been applied to calculate the tide and wave heights
(Deo and Naidu, 1999; Lee and Jeng, 2002; Tsai and Lee,
1999).
In this study, the behavior of bed change at seawall toe
was investigated. Also, the study evaluates the performance
of ANNs model in assessing bed change at seawall toe and
its future trends.
2. Experimental equipment and procedures
A series of experiments were conducted to verify the toe
scour theory and the different parameters affecting it. The
experiments were performed in a wave flume 40.00 m
length, 1.50 m width, and 0.80 m deep, constructed with
reinforced concrete or security glass panels fixed in steel
frames. The maximum admissible depth of water was
0.50 m.
Waves are generated using a wave-generating machine,
fixed on the wave flume, consists of 9.50 HP motor,
7.70 HP hydrotitan to very the speed of the machine, gear
box with reduction ratio of 1:10, and two discs rotated by
the gear box and connected to the wave making plate.
Fig. 1. Definition sketch.
511
r bed change at seawall toe
SWav average surf zone width
X offshore distance
xi input values of neuron
z output from neuron
f activation function
f bed grain size at seawall
y Inclination angle of the seawall with the
horizontal
Permeable wave absorber was constructed to absorb the
wave generated behind the plate and to prevent its
interference with the main front wave. The wave char-
acteristics were measured using a helling type wave
recorder and electrode system. The wave gauge was
calibrated before and after the experiments.
The slope of the beach was adjustable For these
experiments it was set at 1:20 with a deviation from a
plane surface of less than 71 mm. Before and after each
run, the behavior of shoreline at seawall toe was observed
using a digital camera. The bottom slope was formed using
two types of sandy soil of mean diameters 0.30 and
0.93 mm and coefficients of conductivity equal to 1.521 and
11.32 cm/s. All series of tests were carried out using four
slopes of inclined seawall for four different wave char-
acteristics (H=L ¼ 0:016, 0.023, 0.032, and 0.043). Fig. 1
shows a definition sketch for the behavior of bed change at
seawall toe on inclined seawall.
3. Experimental results
Experiments were conducted to study the effects of
location of seawall relative to average surf zone width
X/SWav, wave steepness H/L, combined effect of relative
location of seawall and wave steepness, seawall crown level
CL, and bed material grain size f on the behavior of bed
change at toe r of smooth impermeable inclined seawall.
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512 M.S. El-Bisy / Ocean Engineering 34 (2007) 510–517

3.1. Effect of location of seawall relative to average surf toe for different slopes of smooth impermeable inclined
zone width seawall was shown in Fig. 2. It was noticed that as relative
seawall distance increases the net change in bed at seawall
The effect of location of seawall relative to the average toe increases towards the negative sense, scour.
surf zone width on relative change on bed level of seawall The tests clearly showed that the difference in inclina-
tions between 601, 751, and 901 of the seawalls had very
0.1
Vertical 75 degree
little effect on the scour in comparison with the scour
0.05 60 degree 45 degree resulting from the difference in inclinations between 451
0 and 601. This fact seems to be logical because it has been
-0.05
observed that the difference in reflection between the 451
seawall and 601 seawall is much larger than the difference
r/d

-0.1
in reflection between the 601, 751, and 901 of the seawalls.
-0.15

-0.2
3.2. Effect of wave steepness
-0.25
H/L =0.023 (C.L.) =H φ =0.30mm
-0.3
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
In Fig. 3, scour at seawall toe increases with increase in
X/Swav the wave steepness. For different slopes of smooth
impermeable inclined seawall, it was noticed that as wave
Fig. 2. Effect of location of seawall relative to the average surf zone width
steepness increases the scour at seawall toe increases
on relative change in bed level of seawall toe.
because of the increase of wave energy.
0.1
Vertical 75 degree
60 degree 45 degree 3.3. Combined effect of relative location of seawall and wave
0.05 steepness

Fig. 4 was plotted with relative change on bed level of

r/d

0
seawall toe versus locations of seawall relative to the
average surf zone width under constant wave steepness.
-0.05 For each wave steepness, relative scour at seawall toe
increases with increasing locations of seawall relative to the
(C.L.) =H φ =0.30 mm X=0
-0.1
average surf zone width. However, relative scour at seawall
0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03 0.035 0.04 0.045 toe increases with wave steepness at a particular location of
H/L seawall relative to the average surf zone width. This effect
Fig. 3. Effect of wave steepness on relative change in bed level of seawall is more significant beyond a value of wave steepness of
toe. 0.032.

0.2 0.2
H/L = 0.016 H/L =0.023 H/L = 0.016 H/L =0.023
0.1 H/L =0.032 H/L =0.043 0.1 H/L =0.032 H/L =0.043

0 0
r/d

r/d

-0.1 -0.1
ss
-0.2 -0.2

-0.3 -0.3
(C.L.) =H φ =0.30 mm (C.L.) =H φ =0.30 mm
-0.4 -0.4
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
(a) X/Swav (b) X/Swav

0.2 0.2
H/L = 0.016 H/L =0.023 H/L = 0.016 H/L =0.023
0.1 H/L =0.032 H/L =0.043 0.1 H/L =0.032 H/L =0.043

0 0
r/d

r/d

-0.1 -0.1

-0.2 -0.2

-0.3 -0.3
(C.L.) =H φ =0.30 mm (C.L.) =H φ =0.30 mm
-0.4 -0.4
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
(c) X/Swav (d) X/Swav

Fig. 4. Combined effect of location of seawall relative to the average surf zone width and wave steepness on relative change in bed level of seawall toe.
(a) Vertical wall, (b) 751 inclined seawall, (c) 601 inclined seawall and (d) 451 inclined seawall.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
M.S. El-Bisy / Ocean Engineering 34 (2007) 510–517 513

3.4. Effect of seawall crown level
The effect of seawall crown level on bed level of seawall
toe for different slopes of smooth impermeable inclined
seawall was studied, considering the wave steepness and
bed material grain size fixed at 0.023 and 0.30 mm,
respectively. The crown level was assumed at different
values from half-wave height below MSL to a wave height
above MSL
From Fig. 5, it was obvious that increasing the crown
level from half-wave height below MSL to a wave height
above leads to the toe scour increase. The smallest scour in
front of the wall was observed when seawall crown level
was at a half-wave height below MSL However this
condition gave the largest attack on the area behind the
wall.
3.5. .Effect of bed material grain size
The effect of bed material grain size on bed level of
seawall toe for different slopes of smooth impermeable
0.6
Vertical
inclined seawall is shown in Fig. 6. It shows that scour
depth at seawall toe decreases a little with the increase of
the bed material grain size. The scour at seawall toe
decreased about 11% on increasing the main diameter of
the bed material approximately three times (from f ¼ 0:30
to 0.93 mm).
4. Scour depth formulation
Based on the experimental work, the parametric plots of
toe scour for smooth impermeable inclined seawall were
prepared. Fig. 7 shows samples of parametric plots for
smooth impermeable inclined seawall. These plots can be
used for the prediction of toe scour for smooth imperme-
able inclined seawalls in a simple manner.
5. Model induction from experimental data
The above-given curves can predict the toe scour for
impermeable seawalls for different inclinations but within
the range of experimental data. To widen the range of the
possibility of application for any data required, a neural
networks model is applied based on the obtained experi-
75 degree

0.5
60 degree 45 degree mental data.
A neural network is a collection of artificial neurons. An
0.4 artificial neuron is a mathematical model of a biological
neuron in its simplest form. Each neuron is an independent
r/d

0.3
computational unit as shown in Fig. 8 which works
0.2 according to the following equation:
!
0.1
Xn
z¼f wi xi þ D , (1)
H/L =0.023 φ =0.30 mm X= 0
0 i¼1
-0.5 -0.3 -0.1 0.1 0.3 0.5 0.7 0.9 1.1
where z is the output from neuron; x1, x2,y, xn are the
(C.L.)
input values; w1, w2,y, wn are the connection weights; D is
Fig. 5. Effect of seawall crown level in bed level of seawall toe. the bias value; and f is the activation function.

0.1 0.1
fine sand fine sand
coarse sand coarse sand
0 0
r/d

r/d

-0.1 -0.1

-0.2 -0.2
(C.L.) =H H/L =0.023 (C.L.) =H H/L =0.023
-0.3 -0.3
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
(a) X/Swav (b) X/Swav

0.1 0.1
fine sand fine sand
coarse sand coarse sand
0 0
r/d

r/d

-0.1 -0.1

(C.L.) =H H/L =0.023 (C.L.) =H H/L =0.023

-0.2 -0.2
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
(c) X/Swav (d) X/Swav

Fig. 6. Effect of seawall crown level in bed level of seawall toe. (a) Vertical wall, (b) 751 inclined seawall, (c) 601 inclined seawall, and (d) 451 inclined
seawall.
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514 M.S. El-Bisy / Ocean Engineering 34 (2007) 510–517

1.5

1
X/SWav

0.5
vertical wall
(C.L.) = H
0
2 2.5 3 3.5 4 (x10-2)
(a) H/L

1.5

1
X/SWav

Fig. 9. Structure of an artificial neural network.

0.5
sloping wall (75°)
(C.L.) =H
0
2 2.5 3 3.5 4 (x10-2)
(b) H/L

1.5

1
X/SWav

0.5
sloping wall (60°)
(C.L.) =H
0
2 2.5 3 3.5 4 (x10-2)
(c) H/L
Fig. 10. Neuron weight adjustments.
1.5

1
X/SWav

network has one input layer, one output layer, and two
0.5 hidden layers. The output obtained from the output
sloping wall (45°) neurons represents the network output.
(C.L.) =H
0 The connection weights and bias values are initially
2 2.5 3 3.5 4 (x10-2) chosen as random numbers and then fixed by the results of
(d) H/L
training processes. Many alternative training processes are
Fig. 7. Parametric plots of toe scour. (a) Vertical wall, (b) 751 inclined available, out of which the present study adopted back
seawall, (c) 601 inclined seawall, and (d) 451 inclined seawall. propagation (BP) scheme. The BP is widely applied in a
variety of scientific areas especially in applications invol-
ving diagnosis and forecasting. The goal of any training
algorithm is to minimize the global (mean sum squared)
error E, defined below:
1X
E¼ ðOn  Pn Þ2 , (2)
2
where On is the observations, and Pn is the predictions for
any n output node for any n output node. The summation
has to be carried out over all output nodes for every
training pattern. A pair of input and output values
constitutes a training pattern.
Fig. 8. A model of a neuron. The BP algorithm calculates the error using Eq. (2), and
then it adjusts the weights, first in the output layer, and
then distributes it backward from the output to hidden
The neural network used in the present study is shown in and input nodes as shown in Fig. 10. This is done using
Fig. 9. It is feed-forward type of network where computa- the steepest gradient descent principle where the change
tions proceed in the forward direction only. The neural in weight is directed towards negative of the error
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
M.S. El-Bisy / Ocean Engineering 34 (2007) 510–517 515

gradient, i.e.
qE
Dwn ¼ a Dwn1  Z , (3)
qw
where w is the weight between any two nodes; Dwn, Dwn1
are the changes in this weight at n and n1 iteration, a the
momentum factor, and Z the learning rate.
The learning rate governs the size of the weight change
as per the effect of the weight on the total error. The
momentum factor prevents weight oscillations during
training iterations and also accelerates the training on flat
error surfaces.
Details of the concept of neural networks and the
description of various training algorithms can be seen in
Refs. (Kosko, 1992; Maren et al., 1990; Wu, 1994).
6. Model applications
One of the main issues encountered in artificial neural
networks is the determination of the structure of the neural

Table 1
Summary of the ANN stability model structure

Data setsa Network parameters

I1 % location of seawall relative to average surf zone width Learning rate 0.7
I2 Wave steepness Momentum 0.8
I3 Seawall crown level Input noise 0.03
I4 Grain size of bed at seawall Training tolerance 0.01
I5 Inclination of seawall Testing tolerance 0.015
O Bed change at seawall toe
a
I ¼ Input layer, O ¼ output layer.

25 0.2

20
0
15
-0.2
10
Error (%)

r/d
5 -0.4

0
-0.6
-5
-0.8
-10 Error (%) Actual
Predicted
-15 -1
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
(a) Data No.

25 0.2

20
0
15
-0.2
10
Error (%)

r/d

5 -0.4

0
-0.6
-5
-0.8
-10 Error (%) Actual
Predicted
-15 -1
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
(b) Data No.

Fig. 11. Comparison between predicted and actual values of bed change at seawall toe. (a) Trained data, and (b) tested data.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
516 M.S. El-Bisy / Ocean Engineering 34 (2007) 510–517

network in the number of hidden layers and the number of The applied network parameters for the learning
hidden neurons in each hidden layer. In most reported rate, the momentum and the input noise were found to
applications, the number of hidden layers and the number be 0.7, 0.8 and 0.03, respectively. The ANN-RMS
of hidden neurons are determined based on experience. error reached 0.0385 for the testing phase after 99320
Very often several arbitrary architectures are tried, and one training epochs. The best training and testing tolerance
giving the best performance is selected. were 0.01 and 0.015, respectively. Table 1 shows the
The input data for neural networks model has been charactertics of the developed feed-forward neural netwok
chosen as the percentage of location of seawall relative to model.
the average surf zone width, wave steepness, seawall crown For the developed network mentioned earlier, the results
level, grain size of bed at seawall, and inclination of for trained and tested instances of bed change at seawall
seawall. The output is the bed change at seawall toe. toe are shown in Fig. 11. Fig. 12 represents the scatter
Using the genetic algorithms, an initial adjustment was diagram of predicted and experimental values of bed
achieved for the various network parameters that control the change at seawall toe for trained and tested instances. The
neural network to optimum points. In order to determine the prediction can be seen as fairly close to the corresponding
optimum network configuration for the bed change at seawall actual values of bed change at seawall toe. It can be
toe model, a sensitivity analysis was performed by varying the observed that a maximum absolute percentage error of
network parameters such as learning rate and momentum 6.07%, a minimum absolute percentage error of 0.48% and
that minimize the error in test scenarios. In this current study the mean absolute percentage error of 3.49% were
the learning rate and momentum factor values were selected obtained for bed change at seawall toe. Correlation
by varying them from 0.1 to 0.9 till convergence was reached, coefficients of 0.9802 and 0.9679 were obtained for the
i.e. when further iteration of training cycles did not result in training and testing data, respectively, for bed change at
reduced value of the total error. seawall toe prediction.

0.2
Predicted bed change at seawall toe

0.1

-0.1

-0.2

-0.3

-0.4
-0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.1 0 0.1 0.2
(a) Actual bed change at seawall toe

0.2
Predicted bed change at seawall toe

0.1

-0.1

-0.2

-0.3

-0.4
-0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.1 0 0.1 0.2
(b) Actual bed change at seawall toe

Fig. 12. Scatter of predicted and experimental values of bed change at seawall toe. (a) Trained data, and (b) tested data.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
M.S. El-Bisy / Ocean Engineering 34 (2007) 510–517
7. Conclusions
The following major conclusions can be drawn from this
investigation:
(i) The scour at seawall toe was found to increase with the
locations of seawall relative to the average surf zone
width, and the difference in inclination between 601,
751, and 901 of the seawalls had very little effect on the
scour in comparison with the scour resulting from the
difference in inclinations between 451 and 601.
(ii) It was found that the scour at seawall toe increases
with increase in the wave steepness. This effect is more
significant beyond a value of wave steepness of 0.032.
(iii) The increasing of the crown level from half wave
height below MSL to a wave height above leads to an
increase in toe scour . The smallest scour in front of the
wall was observed when seawall crown level was at a
half-wave height below MSL.
(iv) The scour at seawall toe was found to decrease a little
with an increase in the bed material grain size. The
scour at seawall toe decreased about 11% on increas-
ing the main diameter of the bed material approxi-
mately three times.
(v) The parametric plots of toe scour for smooth imperme-
able inclined seawall were prepared. These plots can be
used for the prediction of toe scour for smooth
impermeable inclined seawall.in a simple manner.
(vi) The developed neural networks model for the predic-
tion of bed change at seawall toe was validated. The
prediction model was fairly close to the corresponding
actual values of bed change at seawall toe with the
mean absolute percentage error of 3.49%. Correlation
coefficients of 0.9802 and 0.9679 were obtained for the
training and testing data, respectively The results
indicate that the neural networks model can predict
the bed change at seawall toe with adequate accuracy
required for practical design purpose.
517
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