The application of floating dikes in the inland waterway regulation project

The conventional method of low beach protection in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River is to build low water regulation structures, such as beach protection belt, bottom protection belt, beach protection submerged dike, fishbone dam, groin dam, along dam, etc. In the present study, a single box veneer type energy dissipation floating dike is designed. The floating dike is composed of one tank and one energy dissipation plate fixed on the floating body perpendicular to the water flow. The structure of floating dike is simple. The laboratory investigations show that it has good posture and stability in water flows. Taking the north channel of Zhangjiazhou waterway as the experimental area, a case study has been performed to validate the floating dike for waterway regulation project. Through field application and in-situ observation, it is found that the riverbed in the downstream observation area of energy-dissipating floating dike group changed from violent scour reversal to siltation, indicating that the energy-dissipating floating dike proposed in this paper has obvious effect of reducing scour and promoting siltation, and achieves the goal of river shoal protection. The changes of scour and silt of the riverbed in the test core area are basically consistent with the assumption before the project. The energy dissipation mechanism of floating dike thus would be utilized for the long-term improvement of the flow conditions in inland waterways and river shoal protections.