Novel Approaches of Marine Geotechnical Engineering: Risk and Reliability of Marine Infrastructures

In recent decades, the oceans have received considerable attention for their abundant energy, mineral, and biological resources, making the development of marine infrastructures critical for the efficient exploitation of these resources. Installation of marine structures will change the flow field and sediment transport, which will in turn affect the marine environment and ecology as well as the habitat for aquatic animals. Examples of marine infrastructures include seawalls, harbours, offshore wind farms, offshore pipelines, tidal stream turbines, oil and gas platforms, cross-sea bridges, and sub-sea tunnels. However, due to the harsh marine environment characterized by waves, ocean currents, corrosion, and complex natural marine geohazards, damage to marine infrastructures and their supporting installations has been reported. Infrastructural failures can result in significant casualties, economic losses, and environmental and ecologic pollution that will affect water animals. Yet, the stability and durability of marine infrastructures in operation remain poorly understood. Therefore, research on the risks and reliability of marine infrastructures is critical to provide practical insights into protecting the stable operation of marine infrastructures.

The objective of this Topic Research is to investigate the risks and reliability of marine infrastructures and the effect of their installation on the marine environment and ecology through theoretical, numerical, experimental, and machine-learning approaches. Previous studies lack a comprehensive understanding of the degradation mechanisms of marine soils subjected to long-term cyclic loading. The traditional theory of pile-soil interaction becomes inadequate as the pile diameter of marine structures continues to increase. Furthermore, little is known about how the installation of marine infrastructures affects marine ecology and habitat for water animals. Additionally, the complex and dynamic marine environment presents significant challenges to evaluating the risks and reliability of marine infrastructures. Therefore, new theories, new methods and abundant monitoring data are both necessary in the future research of marine infrastructures.

We welcome Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Marine soil behavior concerning marine infrastructures;
• Structure–Soil interaction in the marine environment;
• Effect of flow-structure-soil interaction on the marine ecology and habitat;
• Evaluation of the stability of marine infrastructures;
• Marine ecology pollution caused by marine structure failure;
• Prediction and protection against geohazards;
• Marine infrastructures design and construction.

Keywords: marine infrastructures, marine ecology, habitat, marine soil behavior, geohazards, stability, design

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