Engineered Armor Unit for Rubble Mound Breakwaters: Stability and Structural Response Evaluation

Al-Mulali, MZ, Hussein, SS, Fadhil, H, Obaid, ZH, Kadhim, A, Imran, MK, Wannas, LF, Eisa, Z, Hashim, TM ORCID: 0000-0001-9551-0326, Nasr, MS ORCID: 0000-0003-0866-8526 and Shubbar, A ORCID: 0000-0001-5609-1165 (2026) Engineered Armor Unit for Rubble Mound Breakwaters: Stability and Structural Response Evaluation. Eng, 7 (2).

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Abstract

Designing armor units that can withstand harsh marine environments while remaining cost-effective is a central challenge in modern breakwater engineering. This study introduces a newly designed artificial armor unit and evaluates its performance in comparison with established alternatives such as the accropode, core-loc, and conventional rock armor. The findings reveal that the new unit achieves a lower packing density, reducing the number of units required and thereby improving overall cost-effectiveness. Armor layers formed from the newly designed unit exhibited higher porosity than accropode but lower than core-loc, effectively avoiding the slender geometries that compromise durability. Structural analysis using STAAD.Pro confirmed that the new unit developed lower tensile stresses, with reductions of 15% compared to accropode and 35% compared to core-loc under flexure, torsion, and combined loading, demonstrating superior integrity. Hydraulic stability tests showed that the randomly placed newly designed units resisted failure at a stability number (Ns) of 1.4, lowering run-up by 50% and overtopping by 59%, while the uniformly placed newly designed units reached 1.5 without failure, with run-up and overtopping reductions of 30% and 37%, respectively. Collectively, these outcomes highlight the clear hydraulic and structural advantages of the new design over conventional systems, establishing it as a stronger and more resilient solution for breakwater protection.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
Divisions:	Civil Engineering and Built Environment
Publisher:	MDPI AG
Date of acceptance:	14 January 2026
Date of first compliant Open Access:	5 February 2026
Date Deposited:	05 Feb 2026 09:40
Last Modified:	05 Feb 2026 09:40
DOI or ID number:	10.3390/eng7020062
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/28037

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