Scientific Invention by Dr. S. Neelamani and team in Kuwait got US Patent
Thursday, September 29, 2016
US patent office has granted a patent to Dr. S. Neelamani, Senior Research Scientist in the Coastal Management Program, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research and his colleagues Engr. Altaf Taqi and Engr. K. Al-Salem for inventing a novel water wave energy dissipating system. The Patent No. is US 9,447,554 B1 and is dated on 20 Sept. 2016.
This new invention can be used for cost effective construction of marinas and breakwaters for port and harbor facilities, especially for deep water ports, where the cost of rubble mound breakwater is very expensive. The new wave energy dissipater also helps to increase the effective berthing space inside the marinas and harbors.
The novelty involves multiple vertical porous walls. Depends on the design condition, the suitable wave energy dissipater may contain from a single vertical porous wall to six vertical porous walls with porosity anywhere from 10% to 50%. The team has studied on 30 different combinations and come up with suitable recommendations based on cost and performance. If a client looks for very cost effective solution but still better than a sloped rubble mound breakwater from performance point of view, it is possible to pick it out from the study results. For example, if the quantity of stones needed per m run of the conventional breakwater is 75 cubic m for a port with inner water depth of 7.0 m to 10.0 m, the new wave barrier proposed by the inventors will consume about 7.5 to 15 cubic m of concrete, with wave dissipation equal to or even better than the rubble barrier. In many harbors, one of the issues is entry of long waves and the associated wave agitation inside the harbor. From the present study, it is found that the porous wall type wave barrier is better than conventional sloped rubble mound dissipater for long waves.
The invented wave energy dissipater is aesthetically elegant, easy to construct and install (Since prefabrication techniques can be adopted easily), and is very suitable for Kuwait as well as for Gulf type marine conditions and in countries, where good quality stones are not available or expensive. The inventors invite the users to make use of this invention for the future marina and harbors. One can contact [email protected] or [email protected] for further scientific details.
The inventors thank Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research for sponsoring the research work and for the infrastructure facility to carry out the research work. Special thanks to Mr. Josko Ljubic, Mr. George Joseph and Mr. Ashok for the technical support during the investigation. The conceptual appearance of a marina with the new invented wave energy dissipater and the first page of the patent are provided below:
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