Year

2026

Season

Summer

Paper Type

Master's Thesis

College

College of Computing, Engineering & Construction

Degree Name

Master of Science in Civil Engineering (MSCE)

Department

Engineering

Committee Chairperson

Pawitan Krisna

Second Advisor

Ryan Shamet

Third Advisor

Ghasemi Pegah

Department Chair

Harris Alan

College Dean

Klostermeyer William

Abstract

Along with the continuous rise of sea level, direct interaction between elevated coastal structures, such as coastal bridges, and seawater during storm surge, has been shown to potentially cause bridge failures in the past. For example, Hurricane Irma (2017) generated storm surge levels exceeding 2-3 m in portions of South Florida, causing widespread transportation disruption including roadway washouts, erosion, and bridge approach damage along US-1 in Florida Keys. Similar failures have occurred during Hurricane Ivan (2004), where uplift forces displaced spans of the Escambia Bay Bridge, and Hurricane Ian (2022), which caused partial collapse of the Sanibel Causeway when elevated water levels and wave loading displaced bridge segments. These events demonstrate that when surge levels allow waves to interact directly with bridge soffits, significant uplift forces can develop. Florida’s transportation network is particularly vulnerable because extensive bridge systems are located along low-elevation tidal waterways. Bridge decks submerged during coastal inundation are subjected to substantial hydraulic loads, including hydrostatic uplift due to buoyancy amplified by entrapped air and hydrodynamic uplift generated by vertical wave action, documented extensively in post-event investigations of coastal bridge failures during Hurricane Katrina. Box-type girder bridge decks contain cavity geometry capable of trapping air beneath the soffit during surge inundation, where compression of confined air can amplify impulsive pressure when storm waves impact the deck underside. Previous analytical and experimental investigations show that trapped air significantly increases wave-induced uplift force. This study investigates the influence of adding deck vents as a pressure-relief mechanism for reducing uplift forces related to storm surge. Three-dimensional multiphase computational fluid dynamics simulations are performed in STAR-CCM+ to model wave-structure interaction. The results show that adding a 10% vent-to-soffit area ratio ventilation may lead to a 10% improvement in wave loading response to the elevated bridge structure while adding larger vents may lead to higher uplift forces experienced by the structure

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