Bulkhead Erosion

[rulljs]

Hello all,

Above is a link to a picture(hope I did it correctly) that shows a bulkhead with erosion happening behind it from waves/water going over the bulkead and washing the existing soil towards the fence in the picture and then going left and eventually out from behind the bulkhead.

I am looking for a somewhat inexpensive solution for repair which will prevent this from happening in the future.

Any suggestions/ideas would be much appreciated.

 

[jdonville]

rulljs,

First of all, it looks like your structural elemenets (anchor tendons or tiebacks?) are being corroded, so you have additional problems to contend with.

Just off the top of my head, it seems that you either need to prevent overtopping of the bulkhead and/or need to armor the immediate crest area of the bulkhead.

I wonder if designing the bulkhead profile as an overhang would deflect the large waves sufficiently to prevent overtopping of the crest? Alternately, you could place rip rap in front of the bulkhead to absorb some of the wave energy.

Another possibility that comes to mind is to have an integral cast-in-place coping and slab within the splash zone. The slab could be sloped slightly to have the splash drain back into the water.

Some combination of these methods could help your situation.

Jeff