Module package: Water and Coast Engineering

Students will gain in-depth knowledge of the transport and transformation processes of substances occurring in the landscape and water bodies within a catchment area, as well as their mathematical description in an ecohydrological model system. They will be able to build an ecohydrological model for a mesoscale catchment area, prepare and analyze the model outputs, and evaluate the simulation results.

Students will be familiar with the specific characteristics of tsunamis in the phases from tsunami generation to coastal flooding. They will be able to define tsunami hazards and risks, and classify the damage caused and failure mechanisms of structures based on the exerted forces.

Students will learn the fundamentals of key aspects of structural hydraulic engineering and hydraulic engineering testing. They will be able to explain the functioning of hydraulic structures such as weirs, dams, hydropower plants, continuity structures, and crossing structures, and to design these structures hydraulically. They will also be able to independently plan and conduct hydraulic engineering model tests. This enables students to develop suitable measures to solve practical problems, taking specific boundary conditions into account.

Overview of current modeling methods, their areas of application, limitations and current developments. Fundamentals of numerical modeling, numerical modeling of sea states, wave action equation, mild slope equation, phase-averaged and phase-resolved wave modeling, tidal currents, transport processes of sediments and salt, modeling of erosion processes and the failure of coastal barriers due to storm surges, applications of open source and internationally recognized numerical models for modeling.

This course introduces the basic methods of machine learning, including—but not limited to—classification, regression analysis, clustering, and dimensionality reduction.  Students will learn the basic concepts of machine learning and apply the learned concepts to practical problems using open-source libraries.

After successful completion of the module, students will have a broad and solid basic knowledge of the mechanics of water waves and hydrodynamic processes in the coastal area, which enables them to determine the load, erosion and transport parameters for the required constructive and functional planning of engineering measures.

Students will learn to apply and develop hybrid modeling concepts that leverage physical knowledge and experimental data.  At the end of the course, students will be able to apply and develop machine learning algorithms for the aforementioned problem classes.

This course covers the concepts that enable students to understand existing source codes and, in particular, to create new R&D software. The students will be able to estimate and classify the complexity of algorithms of various numerical methods and they will be familiar with essential numerical algorithms for the simulation of engineering problems.