Coastal and Offshore Engineering has an ever-growing importance in the UK’s focus on the Blue Economy. The ‘Blue Economy’ is an emerging concept which encourages better use of ocean resources including marine renewable energy, fisheries and aquaculture, maritime transport, etc. In September 2020 the UK Government announced the launch of a new Marine Innovation Programme to support development of the Blue Economy. The development of the Blue Economy requires the design and deployment of new infrastructure in the oceans and at the coastline. Critically, offshore wind farms are likely to be the UK's largest sector in Civil Engineering for years to come. To support this development, a large number of engineers with strong backgrounds in Coastal and Offshore Engineering will be needed; this opens vast employment opportunities for engineering graduates educated in these areas.

This module focusses on the engineering problems specific to the regions of the ocean both offshore and near the coastline. It covers practical approaches for designing offshore and coastal structures and underlying physical processes such as waves, tides, erosion and other coastal and offshore processes. The coursework project will relate to topics such as the design of coastal or offshore structures, design of offshore renewable energy facilities and coastal defence planning.

Learning Outcomes

Understand simple water wave theories
	Calculate the effects of wave propagating over variable bathymetry and around structures, such as refraction, shoaling, reflection, diffraction
	Analyse wave data to determine parameters describing wave height and period
	Predict extreme wave events for design purposes from wave data
	Know how to predict tide levels, changes in Mean Sea Level, storm surge, and tidal currents
	Understand principals of hydraulic experimental modelling including scale effects
	Understand beach processes, sediment transport and scour
	Outline options for coastal defence
	Calculate wave and current loads on simple structures
	Design basic coastal and offshore structures
Reading List:

Reeve, D., Chadwick, A. G., Fleming, C. (2012) Coastal engineering: processes, theory and design practice. Taylor & Francis

Sorensen, R. M. (2002) Basic coastal engineering. Springer.

EM 1110-2-1100 (2002; 2006) Coastal Engineering Manual. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Chakrabarti, S. (2005) Handbook of Offshore Engineering, Volumes 1-2. Elsevier.